Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Cole is on a roll !

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

“In the name of Zandar, I will fight the Stupid!”

Bark louder, little dog.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Republicans in disarray!

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

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Here’s two old boxers basking in the sun like a pair of fugitive church ladies spending embezzled Sunday School bake sale funds on a cut-rate Panama City holiday:

dp-october-2016

But honest to dog, y’all — I’d rather erect a palm-frond lean-to next to their wallow as my only shelter than trade places with Melania Trump in her gilded cage overlooking Central Park:

Since her speech snafu over the summer, Melania Trump has kept a relatively low profile where her husband’s campaign is concerned. True, she’s defended him against the women accusing him of sexual assault with interviews and fashion statements alike, but she has yet to reappear on the campaign trail.

Unfortunately for Melania, on Thursday Donald surprised his wife with the news that she’ll soon hit the trail again. During a joint appearance on Good Morning America, Melania Trump told host George Stephanopoulos, “I’m there for him every time he needs me. And I might join him — we will see.”

Apparently she was speaking in hypotheticals, because when Donald followed up with, “She’s actually going to make two or three speeches,” Melania let out a surprised, “Oh!”

“Made some news right there,” Stephanopoulos observed, referring to Melania’s reaction. “Well, it is. It’s, it’s — she’s amazing when she speaks,” Donald Trump said. “She’s an amazing public speaker so she’s agreed to do two or three speeches, and I think it’s going to be big speeches, important speeches, and I think it’s gonna be great.”

Sounds like Trump has FLOTUS envy. Michelle Obama has been on the campaign trail eviscerating Trump without ever saying his name, and he probably figures what one broad can do, another can, so he’s going to trot poor Melania out to do…what? Criticize Hillary Clinton for standing by her man? No, that won’t work, for obvious reasons.

Anyhoo. I’m almost moved to pity. Almost. Open thread!

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap

    Stupid auto fill

    Female Lawyer Accuses Justice Clarence Thomas Of Groping Her In 1999
    She was 23 at the time. He was a Supreme Court justice.

  2. 2.

    dedc79

    Re-posting from prior thread:

    First Trump, now Thomas:

    The anticipation of meeting a U.S. Supreme Court justice for the first time turned to shock and distress for a young Truman Foundation scholar in 1999 when, she says, Justice Clarence Thomas grabbed and squeezed her on the buttocks several times at a dinner party.
    On Oct. 7, a night dominated by the disclosure of Donald Trump’s audio-recorded boasts about grabbing women, Moira Smith posted on Facebook a memory of her encounter with Thomas. “He groped me while I was setting the table, suggesting I should sit ‘right next to him,’ ” Smith wrote. Smith, now vice president and general counsel to Enstar Natural Gas Co., in Alaska, was 23 at the time of the dinner party at the Falls Church, Virginia, home of her boss.

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    Counting on Meliana to work “Now we are engaged in a great civil war” into one of the speeches.

  4. 4.

    wake me when this is over

    I certainly hope Melania has a good lawyer. She is going to get dumped as soon as the election is over. Trump will need a boost to his ego. Hopefully there isn’t a woman alive who needs money that badly, but that particular well never seems to dry up :P

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    I haven’t gone in to update the post yet, but we have a winner with the Weekend Movie Club: The Haunting (1963). I’m going to re-watch it from between my fingers tonight and have my essay posted on Saturday morning.

    One of the characters in the film says exactly what’s so freaky about it:

    “Haven’t you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away and then you just … catch something out of the corner of your eye?”

  13. 13.

    Shell

    Did I hear that right? Trump is now saying to the Khans that if he’d been President back then, their son would still be alive. What person outside of a sociopath says something like that?

  15. 15.

    Elmo

    I despise her more than him. He’s a two-bit hustler, a con, a flimflam man, a grifter – but for the most part he does his own grifting, and he found a way to monetize his name and sell it to a wide audience. He is at least a talented showman, with an undeniable ability to find a willing audience and fleece the rubes.

    She’s a whore with a single wealthy patron, who doesn’t actually *have* to make a living on her back but *chooses* to, and chose this particular patron. She chooses to stay with him, despite what we all know him to be. Contemptible.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @PaulWartenberg2016: Nice! I’m not far from Tampa and wanted to be there myself, but I couldn’t get out of work stuff. At least the weather was pretty nice — maybe a wee bit warm, but not in the 90s!

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Saw your post about your terrible movie theatre experience last night. I’m so sorry that happened. Bad enough if it had been just a normal film, but during a one-time event is pretty unforgivable. Thank you for not blaming the opera :-)

    I am a member of a small group of MET Live in HD Ambassadors on FB — private group — and we share stories, both the wonderful and the awful, about our various respective theatres, audiences, and transmission experiences. May I share your experience with that group?

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    My parents had a boxer named “Pudge Muffin” before I was born. I never met Pudge, but to hear them talk about her, she was some kind of superintelligent wonder dog.

    When I was a little kid, they got another boxer, who I named “Tiny” because he was a puppy at the time. Tiny soon grew to normal boxer size, and was amazingly stupid and scarily hostile to strangers (my parents suspected I was the only human he really liked). You never can tell, I guess.

  27. 27.

    JDM

    Trump wants someone near at hand to blame for his failure. Melania is just a handy victim-to-be. He started with the joke at the Catholic dinner where he did “self-deprecating” by throwing his wife under the bus. Now it’s this. I don’t envy her post-election situation. Time to look up divorce attorneys and make exit/escape plans.

  28. 28.

    NorthLeft12

    Here’s two old boxers basking in the sun

    Betty, I am very jealous. In my neck of the woods [SW Ontario] we have not seen the sun for going on two days now. My Lab is going crazy over the lack of a walk [I don’t walk him when it is a steady rain]. If it slows down to a mist, I’ll take him out when I get home from work.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NorthLeft12:

    In my neck of the woods [SW Ontario] we have not seen the sun for going on two days now.

    My cousin in Owen Sound emailed me a photo he took this morning of snow swirling around and covering his car.

  31. 31.

    cmorenc

    Never mind Michelle Obama, I’m looking forward to the NEXT first lady – Bill Clinton. Yeah, he’ll probably be known as “first Dude”, but IMHO it would be awesome if, on Hillary’s first day in office, Bill serves tea to Hillary and her advisors over in the West Wing and leads White House tours the first week back living there.

  32. 32.

    JCJ

    Going with my wife and daughter to add three votes to the Hilz column in Wisconsin this afternoon. It will be my wife’s fist vote for president! My daughter’s fist vote for president was for President Obama in 2012. Mine was for Jim my Carter in 1980.

  33. 33.

    Patricia Kayden

    Those old Boxers look like they could cut a b*tch. So cute. Melania has plenty of Michelle’s speeches to steal from.

    @Shell: Trump has said that several times. This is nothing new. He’s under the delusion that we don’t know that he initially supported the Iraq war.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Sure, feel free. I sent nasty emails to both AMC and Fathom, so I’ll let you know if I get a reply. The problems were so obviously with the theater itself that there was no cause to blame the Met. ☺️

    As far as the production itself goes, it was okay. Nothing particularly special, though the performances were good. The opera itself is such a weird mix of tones that I think it’s hard to stage really well.

    Since you seem to like Mozart/DaPonte, what do you think of “The Abduction from the Seraglio”? The LA Opera is doing a production that’s set in the 1920s on the Orient Express, which sounds like a fun conceit.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @Shell:
    Trump must think that if he finds the right thing to say, he’ll finally win his argument with the Khans. He doesn’t understand that refusing to let go of the argument is what makes him a loser.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    Pop culture alternate reality. I mentioned to a couple of younger colleagues that the upcoming “Doctor Strange” movie got some rave reviews from people who attended a sneak preview at the Los Angeles El Capitan Theater.

    They asked who starred as the Doctor and I replied Benedict Cumberbatch. Blank stares. I said, you know, Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey, Jr? from the movies? No, Sherlock Holmes on TV. More blank stares.

    Finally, I realized that apart from maybe episodes of Sesame Street, these people had never watched PBS and had not seen any of the movies featuring Cumberbatch.

    Ah, well. Back to election madness. How many more days?

  39. 39.

    Major Major Major Major

    My friend suggests that Trump is basing his campaign on Citizen Kane.

    My first official act as governor of the state will be to appoint a special district attorney to arrange for the indictment, prosecution, and conviction of “Boss” Jim W. Gettys!

  45. 45.

    hovercraft

    Hillary doing the hard sale on down ballot races, and fighting back against voter suppression by the GOP.
    Get out and vote if you believe in science, climate change, immigration. marriage equality, college affordability,dignity for women and girls, she’s hitting all of the democratic erogenous zones, get out and and vote.

  53. 53.

    Shell

    he’ll probably be known as “first Dude”,

    Oh don’t use that term.. Thats what Palin and co. said her husband would be called.

  54. 54.

    Jack the Second

    @cmorenc: I’m glad to see someone else come around to the idea that First Lady should become a gender-neutral title, like Alderman. Sure, there will be some Republican mocking at first, “First Lady Bill Clinton”, but if you embrace it, in five or six years it will be as unoffensive as “Obamacare”, which also started off as a Republican taunt (and I’m sure some of them still think it is derogatory).

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    @redshirt:

    I can’t wait to see it. I’ve been doing everything I can to avoid spoilers, but the early reviews are all stellar. The movie sounds as trippy as it should be.

    I am still relatively spoiler free, but it is getting tougher. I ran across one article that was dripping with spoilers.

    The one surprising thing I’ve heard was that a couple of people don’t think that the movie will look better in 3D. Maybe IMAX, but not 3D.

  58. 58.

    hovercraft

    This is a CHANGE election right? Steve Benen

    Those who see the 2016 cycle as a “change election” point specifically to right-right/wrong-track polls. As we discussed last week, it’s a deeply flawed metric, but many pundits continue to say there’s a broad public appetite for radical change — for proof, they point to the fact that most Americans consistently say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

    But sometimes, the wording of a question can produce unexpected results. Take this new CNN poll, for example.

    More Americans than at any time in Barack Obama’s presidency now say that things in the United States are going well, a sharp uptick in positive views and the best reviews of the country’s trajectory since January 2007, according to the latest CNN/ORC poll.

    Overall, 54% say things in the country today are going well, 46% badly. That’s a reversal from late July when 54% said things were going poorly and 46% said they were positive.

    While right-track/wrong-track polling has been common for many years, this poll asked respondents, “How well are things going in the country today — very well, fairly well, pretty badly or very badly?” A combined 54% majority said things are going very well or fairly well.

    To be sure, 54% isn’t an overwhelming number, but it is the highest we’ve seen in this poll since before the Great Recession started nine years ago. The number of Americans who believe things are going very well has now reached a decade-long high.

  60. 60.

    Robin Gittelman

    @Elmo: So do I. I used to feel sorry for her but no more.

    Remember the furor over the Julia Ioffe article about her, when Trump’s na*i supporters terrorized her? Melania defended them by saying Ioffe shouldn’t have “provoked” them. At that point, I realized she’s as big a piece of sh*t as her husband.

  62. 62.

    nominus

    Dumb question that I’ve only had a few minutes to think about: During the budget shutdowns of a few years past, I remember an interview with Bill Clinton where he commented that he would have done something vaguely referenced in the Constitution and then dared the R’s to take him to court to stop him.Now we have the R’s making noise about permanently blocking appointments, notably the vacant Supreme Court seat. So – does HRC have the same mindset that she’ll try legal dares if the R’s keep breaking norms (Link to WP article) and if so, why wouldn’t they just take Grassley to court for violating the Judiciary Act of 1869?

    And if the bullshit mentioned in the WP article continues, I’ll be happy to rub it in the face of every dumbass I’m friends with on Facebook – the ones who argue about excessive government regulation. Most of the time, the reason we have rules is because some asshole decided to be an asshole because “there’s no law against it”

  63. 63.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Elmo:
    Goodness, I hate him WAY more. No context. She’s doing an unpleasant and degrading job for giant amounts of money. No moral issues there, just a trade she decided was worth it. He has built his entire life on hurting everyone he can and preying on the weak. I can’t even blame her for enabling him. She has zero power over the evil he does, one way or the other. I guess in person she might be vile, but I have no reason to believe it and that still wouldn’t touch Donald’s crimes.

  65. 65.

    hovercraft

    @redshirt:
    Terry McCauliff will appoint a replacement, then I think next year someone will have to run for the seat, I think next November. I saw somewhere that the CBC is trying to get Rep. Bobby Scott appointed. Those against have voiced concern about his age, born 1947.

  66. 66.

    NorthLeft12

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, we got some wet snow yesterday too. I heard that the Georgian Bay area was getting a good bit of snow. I would much rather have snow than rain. My dog feels the same way.

  67. 67.

    germy

    Any juicers here drink Yuengling beer?

    “Our guys are behind your father. We need him in there,” Dick Yuengling Jr. told Eric Trump this week as he gave the wealthy young scion of the Trump empire a tour of his brewery Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

  69. 69.

    Trentrunner

    @germy: These have been great. No idea why they aren’t more lauded. Funny, and actually poignant…but mainly funny.

  71. 71.

    D58826

    Donald Trump said. “She’s an amazing public speaker so she’s agreed to do two or three speeches, and I think it’s going to be big speeches, important speeches, and I think it’s gonna be great

    Well Michelle has given a number of great speeches that Melania can crib from!!!!

  72. 72.

    Brachiator

    @cmorenc:

    Never mind Michelle Obama, I’m looking forward to the NEXT first lady – Bill Clinton. Yeah, he’ll probably be known as “first Dude”,

    First Gentleman?

    @Jack the Second:

    I’m glad to see someone else come around to the idea that First Lady should become a gender-neutral title, like Alderman.

    I don’t think that “Alderman” is quite gender neutral, except by custom. I think the entire position should be abolished. It has not basis in anything except the old expectations of the Washington social scene.

    But it will be funny when Angela Merkel and Theresa May come to town. Three powerful women leaders will have a summit meeting, while their spouses sit around and watch football and drink beer. And maybe send prank twitter messages to Donald Trump.

  74. 74.

    germy

    @Trentrunner: They seem to have hired (or promoted) some smart writers. The Melania Moments are good, and last week’s Black Jeopardy was surprisingly good.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator:

    Pop culture alternate reality. I mentioned to a couple of younger colleagues that the upcoming “Doctor Strange” movie got some rave reviews from people who attended a sneak preview at the Los Angeles El Capitan Theater.

    They asked who starred as the Doctor and I replied Benedict Cumberbatch. Blank stares. I said, you know, Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey, Jr? from the movies? No, Sherlock Holmes on TV. More blank stares.

    Finally, I realized that apart from maybe episodes of Sesame Street, these people had never watched PBS and had not seen any of the movies featuring Cumberbatch.

    The whole Fro family is psyched for DOCTOR STRANGE!

    Btw since today’s Throwback Thursday, some FB friends were kibitzing about upcoming 30-year anniversaries of various HS-era concerts we all went to…I had forgotten that my very first big concert was RATT (with opener POISON) at the Cap Centre(!) So fwiw, the arc of progress definitely bends towards increasingly better quality music…

  76. 76.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    @germy:

    Sigh, yes. I have several cases of Yuengling Porter in the basement. I live outside their distribution area so bring a ton back with me whenever I’m back east (usually twice a year).

    It’s a scummy company on many levels: union busting, clean water act violations are the other two notables.

    When my current supply is consumed, no more Yuengling for me. I haz a sad but fuck the old man head of the company, Dick “Dick” Yuengling.

  80. 80.

    Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim

    Opening day of early voting here in Maryland. I went at a little after 11am and was on line for just over an hour. Not sure how that bodes for things here in Baltimore.

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    FLOTUS a few moments ago: “Hillary Clinton is a policy wonk. And let me tell you, when you’re president, that’s a good thing.”

  83. 83.

    Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim

    @germy: The porter is quite good. The lager used to be my choice when I went into a place and didn’t know what to have. Haven’t had a drop since I heard about the union-busting.

  84. 84.

    randy khan

    @hovercraft:

    I think who runs depends on a lot of factors. First, will McAuliffe appoint someone who’s a placeholder (Jim Moran comes to mind, although I pray it’s not him) or try to clear the field by appoint the person he thinks should run for the full term (actually, probably only a one-year term, since Kaine was elected in 2012)? If it’s a placeholder, then it might be that McAuliffe wants to run, since his term as governor is over at the end of 2017, but any of the members of Congress in safe Dem seats might run, as it would be an off-off year election and they wouldn’t have to give up their seats. So, Bobby Scott is a possibility and so is Gerry Connolly, for instance. I’d guess not Don Beyer, but he has a ton of money, has run state-wide campaigns, and might feel like it’s his shot.

    BTW, on the Republican side, it’s something of the same calculus – you could get any of the safe-seat Republican Congresscritters, but also you might get somebody like Ken Cuccinelli (please, please) or even Bob McDonnell, since he’s been “vindicated” by not being quite venal enough for the Supreme Court.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @redshirt:

    The only movie I can think of that used 3D well was Avatar. For every other movie I’ve seen, it’s like a gimmick and not worth it.

    Actually, “Gravity” used 3D to great effect (pun intended), and audiences generally thought that the use of 3D in Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi.”

  87. 87.

    hovercraft

    @randy khan:

    you might get somebody like Ken Cuccinelli (please, please) or even Bob McDonnell, since he’s been “vindicated”

    For the love of pasta, am I loved this much by the universe?

  88. 88.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    @Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:

    The seasonal Bock is also quite good. Obviously we agree on the Porter.

    I’d heard about the union busting from a lefty, lawyer buddy of mine in PA. He said initially it was about that particular Teamsters local being a shitty local. Again, this friend is a friend of labor so I believed him. Turns out that was more or less a cover story for “Dick” to force em out with the threat of leaving the state.

    I forgot that he’s also been lobbying for a right-to-work-for-less law in the state. Not sure why he now thinks he needs it given he’s busted the union.

  90. 90.

    bystander

    @Mnemosyne: I find Bloom was playing her character as a lesbian but never got that in the book. Anyway, that movie gave 13 year old me nightmares for weeks.

  91. 91.

    Betty Cracker

    Damn, FLOTUS just gave an incredibly moving and inspirational speech. She and Hillary were both tearing up toward the end.

  92. 92.

    bystander

    @germy: Brian Sims, a Pennsylvania legislator, announced he was boycotting Yuengling. I think it must be a nostalgia thing because I think it tastes like crap.

  96. 96.

    Doug R

    @Brachiator: I’ve got a couple of Strange thoughts. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so the tv spots have been playing up similarities to Inception, which I loved and I’m sure Disney’s focus groups did too.
    Taking from the Chris Nolan Batman/Inception/Interstellar experience, sometimes you don’t want 3d especially if it’s done in post. If a lot of scenes were shot in Imax, 3d can detract from the experience.

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    The whole Fro family is psyched for DOCTOR STRANGE!

    Somehow, I couldn’t help but think, Renfro, Affro, and the twins To-and-Fro and Back-and-Fro.

    Btw since today’s Throwback Thursday, some FB friends were kibitzing about upcoming 30-year anniversaries of various HS-era concerts we all went to…I had forgotten that my very first big concert was RATT (with opener POISON) at the Cap Centre(!) So fwiw, the arc of progress definitely bends towards increasingly better quality music…

    Didn’t do a lot of concerts during high school. Couldn’t really afford it. In college, had friends with pull, but was more of a jazz baby.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Kevin M. Kruse ‏@KevinMKruse
    Remember that Mark Halperin said Trump was “one of the two most talented candidates ever,” could put Calif. in play & would pick female VP.

    There has to be some accountability! :)

  100. 100.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    They were both just incredible. Their mutual respect and affection is almost tangible — there was nothing of the calculated political gesture about that hug at the end, and the glowing words they had for each other were obviously from the heart.

  101. 101.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Elmo:

    She’s a whore with a single wealthy patron, who doesn’t actually *have* to make a living on her back but *chooses* to, and chose this particular patron. She chooses to stay with him, despite what we all know him to be.

    Ummm, no Melania fan here but I find that statement to be incredibly offensive and misogynistic. Are all women who marry wealthy or powerful men who do inappropriate things on their own time also whores and enablers? Because you’re dangerously close to agreeing with the Republican’s case that Hilary was one of those in regards to Bill, and that is total fucking bullshit.

    You can critique Donald Trump and even his marriages without turning the women in his life into “whores”.

  102. 102.

    geg6

    @Brachiator:

    Gads, you are both babies. My very first concert was Three Dog Night at Three Rivers Stadium in 1971. It was the first rock concert staged there. Billy Eckstein had the honor of playing the first concert of any musical genre in the (at the time) brand new stadium.

  103. 103.

    Doug R

    @redshirt: There’s been good cartoons that have used 3d well. Monsters vs Aliens, How to Train your Dragon and Megamind for example.
    Of course most parts of Avatar is a really good looking cartoon.

  104. 104.

    geg6

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    Well, except for the fact that Hillary never married Bill for his money. As we all know that Melania did. Which is a little, well, whorish. Or prostitutish. Or sex workerish. Or whatever word you want to use for having sex for money.

  105. 105.

    Peale

    @hovercraft: All summer long they reported how the nation agrees with Trump that we are at a crossroads caused by a crisis and the world is about to fall apart. However, a lot of that crisis is manufactured and a lot of us felt that the crisis was actually Trump. Now that he’s not going to win, our side feels relieved and maybe has looked around and realized that life in the US isn’t really in the toilet.

  106. 106.

    Mel

    @Elmo:

    While I agree that she had other choices, and I truly despise their entitled attitudes and the very real pain and chaos that Trump’s sexist, racist, and classist statements have encouraged and furthered, I do disagree with your decision to call a woman who marries a (supposedly) wealthy man a “whore”.

    Would you apply that same term, across the board to a man who marries a woman whose wealth far exceeds his? Did you have a problem, for example, with John Kerry’s marrying the heiress to the Heinz fortune? I don’t think that choice made John Kerry a “whore”, and I’m guessing that it’s not the term that their relationship brings to your mind either. So, I am asking that you please ask yourself: why that is the word you chose to describe a woman in a marriage with partners of unequal financial status?

    Would you apply the same standard and same term (“whore”) to a same sex couple in which one spouse has more funds than the other? To a couple that decides that one spouse will work outside the home and bring in their sole source of income, while the other spouse does the difficult work of managing a home and caring for children or aged parents, but is solely dependent upon the other spouse for the family’s financial support?

    Seriously, calling her on her behaviors and actions (for example, blithely plagiarizing others’ works, failing to own up to and apologize for the plagiarism, and belittling the trauma of women who have been assaulted) that directly impact individuals and the country – YES!! We need to call it like it is and not hesitate to discuss and challenge that kind of destructive action.

    But… Calling someone a “whore” because of who they choose to have a sexual relationship with, or in this case to marry – I am not okay with that. Never will be.

    Her choice of spouse (though absolutely horrifying to my mind) is really not anybody’s business but hers, whatever her reasons, and no matter how self-serving her personal reasons for the marriage might or might not be.

    One of the many, many festering, deep-seated and incredibly destructive social problems that Trump’s awful rhetoric has ripped the band-aid off of and really exposed to the light is the issue of how ingrained sexism is in our culture (wage inequality, workplace harassment, employment discrimination, unequal healthcare rights and access, the justice system failing victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault, and the list seems to go endlessly and depressingly on).

    Is the best way to fight for justice and work to overcome all the hurdles that women and girls still face in this country to name-call yet another woman by a negative, sexually charged bit of what Trump’s horrible campaign would likely label “locker room talk”?

    In my opinion, absolutely not, no matter how strongly one feels about the issues at hand.

  108. 108.

    Peale

    @Kay: Maybe we should have a punditry test every year. Created by Kaplan. And organizations that don’t improve their analysis and opinion scores are held back a year.

  109. 109.

    The Moar You Know

    Why, what was she supposed to choose?

    @Mnemosyne: Exactly. I don’t blame anybody for doing what they’ve gotta do to get out of poverty. Nothing is worse than being poor, save possibly for being dead.

  110. 110.

    The Moar You Know

    Any juicers here drink Yuengling beer?

    @germy: Nope, never could get it in CA.

    Had an interest, as it was one of the VERY few brewers to survive Prohibition. But then heard it tasted like week-old urine and never thought about it since until now.

    Will continue not drinking Yuengling beer.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @Doug R:

    I’ve got a couple of Strange thoughts. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so the tv spots have been playing up similarities to Inception, which I loved and I’m sure Disney’s focus groups did too.

    I’ve stayed away from most discussion about the film, even comments from the preview audience. But a couple of people said that they thought about Inception based on the trailers, but didn’t think of the comparison as much upon actually seeing the film.

  112. 112.

    hovercraft

    @Ella in New Mexico: @Mel:
    I agree with both of you. I’m not a fan of hers, and I do believe that she made her bed and now must live her choice. That does not make her a whore. Even if she only married him for his money, that still would not make her a whore, people of unequal wealth and social status marry everyday, they are not whores. We all make choices, many that others disagree with, that is each of our choice, we don’t get to blame these choices on anyone but ourselves. And we on the outside don’t get to make judgments about their choices. If she doesn’t want to be with him she has the option to leave, I don’t feel sorry for her having to live in the lap of luxury with an asshole though.

  113. 113.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @geg6:

    Well, except for the fact that Hillary never married Bill for his money. As we all know that Melania did. is a little, well, whorish. Or prostitutish. Or sex workerish. Or whatever word you want to use for having sex for money.

    No, no and no. Don’t go there.

    Again, that’s a disgusting and misogynistic thing to say about a woman, period. And yes, for whatever reason Hilary stayed with a powerful man who did some totally inappropriate things. So now Republicans are saying she sold out for the chance to benefit from his power in order to further her own career, even going as far as to help him cover up his actions which makes her responsible for them. Which I will assume most people who support her would say is crap.

    As much as you hate someone, do not hold someone else accountable for their actions unless you’re damn sure they actively participated in their transgressions.

  114. 114.

    The Moar You Know

    Flat out y’all should not be shaming sex workers. It’s a job, just like any other job, and you all should show some respect to the workers.

  115. 115.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    I haven’t gone in to update the post yet, but we have a winner with the Weekend Movie Club: The Haunting (1963).

    Great choice.

  116. 116.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Mel:

    Would you apply the same standard and same term (“whore”) to a same sex couple in which one spouse has more funds than the other? To a couple that decides that one spouse will work outside the home and bring in their sole source of income, while the other spouse does the difficult work of managing a home and caring for children or aged parents, but is solely dependent upon the other spouse for the family’s financial support?

    Thank you. This is exactly what is so disturbing about calling Melania a whore for staying with Trump. It makes a whole, whole lotta people “whores” by definition, when they are no such thing of the sort. But it’s been used forever as a way to demean women with less financial power than their male spouse/partner, and it’s disgusting.

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    And yes, for whatever reason Hilary stayed with a powerful man who did some totally inappropriate things. So now Republicans are saying she sold out for the chance to benefit from his power in order to further her own career, even going as far as to help him cover up his actions which makes her responsible for them.

    Over the weekend, I spoke with a generally liberal woman friend who voiced a complaint against Hillary that I’ve generally heard from conservative women more vehemently than from men of any ideology. My friend greatly disapproved of Hillary for being in what she believed to be a purely political marriage of convenience. She was almost personally offended that Hillary would enter into and stay in such an arrangement.

    As a rule, unless someone is abusive, I don’t care why people marry or stay married. As a character Octave says in Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, “The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons.”

    Americans in particular want to hang onto the idea that marriage must be about love, only love. And just as some people try to declare that gay marriage somehow damages their own marriage as well, my friend is so offended by her vision of the Clinton marriage, that she throws off attitude that the integrity of her own marriage is assaulted as well.

    Yeah, this is complete and utter nonsense, but I find it fascinating that people think like this. And, as I mentioned in an earlier thread, at this stage of the election, I do not try to change anyone’s opinions about Clinton or any other candidate, but I am very curious about their perceptions and decisions.

    Ah, another quote from The Rules of the Game:

    Friendship with a man? That’s asking for moonlight at midday.

  120. 120.

    redshirt

    @Brachiator: I think the Inception references when it comes to Doctor Strange are simply because of the folding city visuals in the preview, which were in Inception. Probably intentional to make that link. But otherwise I don’t think the two films will have many similarities, since Strange is a super hero MCU flick.

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    @ Betty Cracker:

    Here’s two old boxers basking in the sun like a pair of fugitive church ladies spending embezzled Sunday School bake sale funds on a cut-rate Panama City holiday

    I’d read that story. Just nothing too precious, like from Eudora Welty. Something saltier and funnier.

  122. 122.

    geg6

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t agree. If you marry someone solely because they are rich, you are what you seem to be. I don’t have a problem with it, just as I don’t have a problem with sex workers. We all do what we feel we have to do. But I am not going to get upset when someone calls a person like that what we all think he or she is. FWIW, your analogy to John Kerry is ridiculous. He wasn’t a penniless nude model when he met Teresa Heinz.

    ETA: Sorry, it wasn’t you who made the stupid analogy to John Kerry.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne: And then, the director of The Haunting went on to direct

    The Sound of Music.

    Robert Wise was exceptional. Will have to read a bio of him, some day. Amazing range of films, and would suspect they hold their own still.

    The Haunting was the scariest movie I’d ever seen, when I finally saw it, and retains its power to disturb. Look forward to the blogpost. Great choice.

    Have a copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House out to read again after the election.

  124. 124.

    gwangung

    My enthusiasm for DR. STRANGE (a childhood favorite) is more than a bit dimmed by the casting and the EXTREMELY lame justifications for it. Fairly clear they have no idea why they angered a small segment of the audience.

  125. 125.

    Tehanu

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    You can critique Donald Trump and even his marriages without turning the women in his life into “whores”.

    and @Mel:, too:

    Hear, hear. I’m no fan of Melania either, or indeed of any of Drumpf’s women, but nobody but her knows what her motive for marrying the man was.

  128. 128.

    Shana

    @hovercraft: We’re going to have a whole bunch of special elections next year in Virginia replacing replacements. Ending with the regularly-scheduled state wide Gov., Lt. Gov., Atty. Gen., House of Delegates and some State Senate races. I get no time off in 2017.

    And helping to organize The Wodehouse Society’s convention in DC the weekend of October 19-22, 2017.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    Anyone who still thinks that didn’t watch Bill’s speech at the DNC, because he clearly adores her. The way that gets expressed within their marriage between the two of them is up to them and no one else.

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne

    @gwangung:

    Yeah, I’ve been reading some of that. Really, there were NO Asian actors of stature for that role? Not a single one in the whole world?

    Hell, movie companies are already adding scenes specifically for the Chinese market to their films. Why not find a Chinese or Hong Kong star to increase their viability there? Though I guess the whole Tibet thing makes it complicated.

  132. 132.

    Death Panel Truck

    @Tehanu: Marla Maples’ motivation:

    “You know where Marla and the Donald met? In church. Isn’t that sweet? You know, they sat in adjoining pews, in church there in New York. They discovered they had the exact same religious beliefs. He believed in his money, and she believed in his money.”

    –Joe Bob Briggs, during a presentation of Maximum Overdrive on TNT’s MonsterVision.

  133. 133.

    Mel

    @geg6:
    Nope. That “stupid” comment was from me. I hear what you are saying, and you are absolutely entitled to your point-of-view, but I do think that you might have misunderstood the bigger point I am trying to make. I am not an easily shocked individual – I grew up in a poverty-stricken rural area, and have worked professionally with kids and women in distress in poor and wealthy areas, urban, rural, and suburban. I have seen things that would absolutely break your heart.

    And in large part because of what I have seen and because of my own life experiences, I stand by my statement: words, and the connotations that they carry, have power.

    And it’s fine if you dislike my analogy. I agree, Kerry wasn’t living in poverty, but his wife certainly had more wealth, and social pull. There are many other examples wherein the man was poor or of average income, and the woman had financial means. I should have used a different, more exactly aligned example to make my point. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of those men referred to as a “whore”. Opportunist? Sure. Fortune Hunter? Yep. But not “whore”. That term seems solely reserved to be slung at women. My question is this: Why is it okay for men to marry for money without having their sexual behavior or “morals” made part of the equation, but a woman who marries for money is a “whore”. And while the term at its most simple level does just mean “sex worker”, it’s the connotations that are the big issue here. In our society, there are an awful lot of double standards, and let’s face it: this society discriminates against sex workers as well as against women. This isn’t the Netherlands, and women’s sexuality is still a big taboo here.

    That’s my issue with Elmo’s use of the word. My problem is not at all with “the truth”. My problem is that, both now and historically, certain words, “whore” amongst them, are and have been loaded guns used as weapons to discredit and dismiss women.

    I do stand by my statement: words, and the connotations they carry, have power.

    Watch an 18 year old student’s date rapist go free because her accuser’s attorney persuades the jury that she “knew what was expected and was getting something out of the bargain” because she was very poor and the young man in question had bought her a couple of nice dinners and a $50 dollar necklace.

    Watch an abused suburban woman’s ex get away with essentially a slap on the wrist after beating her bloody, because her decision to go on a date with another man before the divorce was finalized was “cuckolding” and “infidelity” that “understandably provoked him”.

    Watch a hard-working mother of 3 who is getting her bachelor’s degree be denied shared custody of her children after a divorce because of a conviction 25 years prior, for soliciting. The word ” whore” was actually used in her hearing. Why? Because her husband’s attorney understood the power of the negative connotations associated with the word, and the impact that having that word in the mix would have upon the custody hearing.

    After a couple of decades of seeing just how much the connotations of words like “whore” can impact women’s lives, I do feel like it’s an issue worth calling to a person’s attention.

  134. 134.

    Lynn Dee

    Here’s two old boxers basking in the sun like a pair of fugitive church ladies spending embezzled Sunday School bake sale funds on a cut-rate Panama City holiday.

    Ha! A writing tour de force, Betty!

  135. 135.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @geg6:

    But I am not going to get upset when someone calls a person like that what we all think he or she is.

    I think you’re missing the point, and also missing how you’ve bought into, subconsciously, a very sexist, hateful mindset that has reinforced not just discrimination, but outright violence against women. Not unlike subconscious racism has driven so many of the ugliest, most vile “jokes” and insinuations about the Obamas by people who will then turn around and tell you they’re not at all racist. Calling a woman a “whore” because they stay married to someone you don’t like for reasons or benefits you have no right to second guess is disrespectful and arrogant, not telling it like it is.

    I think @Mel: states it better than I do above.

  137. 137.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    Hell, movie companies are already adding scenes specifically for the Chinese market to their films. Why not find a Chinese or Hong Kong star to increase their viability there? Though I guess the whole Tibet thing makes it complicated.

    The Tibet thing makes it more than complicated. People in the West rightly debate issues of inclusion and appropriateness. The Chinese government imposes political content and other tests that have nothing to do with fairness or historical issues.

    There is also a weird, maybe unfortunate side to this. Iron Man comics fans complained that the Mandarin was re-cast as non-Chinese (and was a bit of a fraud) in Iron Man 3. The weird thing here is that the fans wanted a character that was closer to the old racist Fu Manchu stereotype because this is what they were used to seeing. Other comics books sometimes have a similar problem; the character that fans know and love is too often a white man’s fantasy of a nonwhite person. Casting a nonwhite person in the role is not more “authentic” unless you also do some serious rewriting.

  138. 138.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    As far as the production itself goes, it was okay. Nothing particularly special, though the performances were good. The opera itself is such a weird mix of tones that I think it’s hard to stage really well.

    Yeah, as I mentioned, Don Giovanni isn’t my favorite Mozart opera, although I adore several of the set-pieces. I feel the same about Così fan tutte.I do love pretty much every minute of Le nozze di Figaro. And yes, staging it [edit: Don G] must be a challenge. It’s so easy to burlesque seduction, whether it’s the Don making a move on Zerlina, or Zerlina sweet-talking her Masetto into forgiving her. And I’ve often thought that Donna Elvira must be a wickedly difficult role to pull off. Not the singing so much as the acting, shifting regularly between a screeching vengeful harridan and a woman who was/is truly madly deeply in love with her seducer.

    Since you seem to like Mozart/DaPonte, what do you think of “The Abduction from the Seraglio”? The LA Opera is doing a production that’s set in the 1920s on the Orient Express, which sounds like a fun conceit.

    All three of the Mozart/DaPonte operas (Don G, Così, Le nozze) are, at their core, about sex and power and class and manipulation and deceit — in other words, opera :-)

    I generally much prefer German opera (I’m a passionate and unapologetic Wagnerian, love Weber, and my very favorite Mozart opera is The Magic Flute). Oddly, though, I’ve seen The Abduction (Singspiel) only once, and that was well over 40 years ago in a university opera workshop production, quite probably abridged. I’ve heard it several times through recordings and on the radio, but I don’t feel I really know it. Moving it to the ’20s and setting it on the O.E. might work well. I’ve heard about the LA production in passing but don’t really know anything beyond that. Have you seen it, or do you plan to? If so, I’d enjoy your take on it.

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