Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

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221Comments

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    Do not let Omnes see that photo. It’s like a demonic serial-killer rabbit clown all rolled into one.

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    Since it’s just the three of us, I’ll say that I am really missing my dad today. Easter was our holiday together after my mom died. It’s been 22 years since I lost my dad. Baud, thinking of you and your mom, the first few years of holidays are the hardest.

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    @Lurking Canadian: Thank you. Grief is such a strange thing. It comes and goes with a life of its own, triggered by things we aren’t even conscious of.

    I wonder if it was the sweet joke someone posted yesterday – totally my dad’s sense of humor. He would have loved this one.

    What do get when you pour boiling water into a rabbit warren?

    Hot cross bunnies.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have never actually seen Sean Spicer – I can’t bring myself to watch – but I can say with confidence that they are surely soulmates.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    For me, it’s been more than 40 years for my father and 10 for my mother, but it hasn’t gotten much easier. My aunt passed a week and a half ago, and at the service I saw just about every surviving friend of my parents. I can’t stand that the generation of my second and third fathers and mothers is leaving.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    @WaterGirl: Hugs for you. That’s such a loss.

    I don’t have many happy Easter memories, because it was all about the scratchy, uncomfortable, and tormenting new clothes, and trying to stay chilled out during a looooong church service while trying not to scratch all the skin off my body and run screaming down the aisle…

    On the other hand, abundant chocolate.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Absolutely! You are one of my favorites. (Not that I have favorites, mind you, no of course I don’t, no really, I mean it.) I just didn’t know you were here yet!

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Beautiful, raven. It won’t be this year, but next spring, if I may, I’d like to make a point of driving over some lovely spring day and wangle an invitation to see your garden in person.

    @WaterGirl:

    It’s been 21+ years since my dad died, and I also still have moments of profound, and often unexpected, grief. {{{Hugs}}} to you, especially on this day that holds so many memories.

  17. 17.

    Big Ole Hound

    @WereBear: Exactly, but thankfully make parents got away from the church thing when I asked them how come they didn’t have to go. I think I was 7. The shorts and little blue cap were the worst.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I’m sorry to hear that it hasn’t gotten much easier for you, and contemplating the eventual loss of the other almost parents is heartbreaking.

    For me it has gotten easier, but when grief rears its head it can feel like yesterday. I remember the Father’s Day of the year he died – I saw a billboard from some retail store and it said “Everybody has a Dad!” And I thought, no, no they don’t. I was so angry at that sign! I don’t even know how little kids cope with the loss of a parent with all the daddy-daughter dances etc that are meant to be wonderful but that have to be excruciating for a youngster who has lost a parent.

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @WereBear: My little kid memories of Easter were always good – we all got brand-new Easter clothes every spring! Three kids, all girls: we each got a new Easter dress and a hat and shiny new shoes and anklet socks and even a new Easter coat. And new white gloves, I forgot about the gloves!

    edit: which we wore to Catholic church for what was surely a long sermon. But I liked church back then, loved Palm sunday when we all got palms to take home.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: I read this in one of Molly Ivins’ books about a week ago. It really stuck with me:

    Molly Ivins – A Short Story about the Vietnam War Memorial – Dallas Times Herald – 11/30/82

    SHE had known, ever since she first read about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, that she would go there someday. Sometime she would be in Washington and would go and see his name and leave again.

    So silly, all that fuss about the memorial. Whatever else Vietnam was, it was not the kind of war that calls for some “Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima” kind of statue. She was not prepared, though, for the impact of the memorial. To walk down into it in the pale winter sunshine was like the war itself, like going into a dark valley and damned if there was ever any light at the end of the tunnel. Just death. When you get closer to the two walls, the number of names start to stun you. It is terrible there in the peace and the pale sunshine.
    The names are listed by date of death. There has never been a time, day or night, drunk or sober, for 13 years she could not have told you the date. He was killed on Aug, 13, 1969. It is near the middle of the left wall. She went toward it as though she had known beforehand where it would be. His name is near the bottom. She had to kneel to find it. Stupid clichés. His name leaped out at her. It was like being hit.

    She stared at it and then reached out and gently ran her fingers over the letters in the cold black marble. The memory of him came back so strong, almost as if he were there on the other side of the stone, she could see his hand reaching out to touch her fingers. It had not hurt for years and suddenly, just for a moment, it hurt again so horribly that it twisted her face and made her gasp and left her with tears running down her face. Then it stopped hurting but she could not stop the tears. Could not stop them running and running down her face.

    There had been a time, although she had been an otherwise sensible young woman, when she had believed she would never recover from the pain. She did, of course. But she is still determined never to sentimentalize him. He would have hated that. She had thought it was like an amputation, the severing of his life from hers, that you could live on afterwards but it would be like having only one leg and one arm. But it was only a wound. It healed. If there is a scar it is only faintly visible now at odd intervals.

    He was a biologist, a t.a. at the university getting his Ph.D. They lived together for two years. He left the university to finish his thesis and before he could line up a public school job – teachers were safe in those years – the draft board got him. They had friends who had left the country, they had friends who had gone to prison, they had friends who had gone to Nam. There were no good choices in those years. She thinks now he unconsciously wanted to go even though he often said, said in one of his last letters, that it was a stupid f—in’ war. He felt some form of guilt about a friend of theirs who was killed during the Tet offensive. Hubert Humphrey called Tet a great victory. His compromise was to refuse officer’s training school and go as an enlisted man. She had thought then it was a dumb gesture and they had a half-hearted quarrel about it.

    He had been in Nam less than two months when he was killed, without heroics during a firefight at night, by a single bullet in the brain. No one saw it happen. There are some amazing statistics about money and tonnage from that war. Did you know that there were more tons of bombs dropped on Hanoi during the Christmas bombing of 1971 than in all of World War II? Did you know that the war in Vietnam cost the United States $123.3 billion? She has always wanted to know how much that one bullet cost. Sixty-three cents? $1.20? Someone must know.

    The other bad part was the brain. Even at this late date, it seems to her that was quite a remarkable mind. Long before she read C.P. Snow, the ferociously honest young man who wanted to be a great biologist taught her a great deal about the difference between the way scientists think and the way humanists think. Only once has she been glad he was not with her. It was at one of those bizarre hearings about teaching “creation
    science.” He would have gotten furious and been horribly rude. He had no patience with people who did not understand and respect the process of science.

    She used to attribute his fierce honesty to the fact that he was Yankee. She is still prone to tell “white” lies to make people feel better, to smooth things over, to prevent hard feelings. Surely there have been dumber things for lovers to quarrel over than the social utility of hypocrisy. But not many.

    She stood up again, still staring at his name, stood for a long time. She said, “There it is,” and turned to go. A man to her left was staring at her. She glared at him resentfully. The man had done nothing but make the mistake of seeing her weeping. She said, as though daring him to disagree, “It was a stupid, f—in’ war,” and stalked past him.

    She turned again at the top of the slope to make sure where his name is, so whenever she sees a picture of the memorial she can put her finger where his name is. He never said goodbye, literally. Whenever he left he would say, “Take care, love.” He could say it many different ways. He said it when he left for Vietnam. She stood at the top of the slope and found her hand half-raised in some silly gesture of farewell. She brought it down again. She considered thinking to him, “Hey, take care, love,” but it seemed remarkably inappropriate. She walked away and was quite entertaining for the rest of the day, because it was expected of her.

    She thinks he would have liked the memorial O.K. He would have hated the editorials. He did not sacrifice his life for his country or for a just or noble cause. There just were no good choices in those years and he got killed.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @debbie:

    Debbie, I’m sorry about your aunt. It is very hard to see the next older generation go, if for no other reason than it means we’re in charge now, like it or not. When my own aunt died I suddenly realized, with a sinking feeling, OMG I am the oldest member of the family now! Quite disorienting.

    @Baud:

    Baud, I think I must have missed the news about your mother. I’m so sorry. Losing parents is very tough, no matter how expected in the ordinary course of things.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Thanks, Baud! Funny, I don’t think of Easter as a religious holiday, I just kind of assumed that everyone celebrated Easter with baskets and chocolate bunnies and colored easter eggs.

    Somebody needs to find the link to David Sedarus and his explanation of Easter.

  25. 25.

    Glidwrith

    @WereBear: Ha! Scatchy clothes and a long service, but we didn’t get any chocolate or candy. My mom didn’t believe in it. We got colored boils eggs and that was it. Couldn’t even eat them, because I hated the yolks and One Did Not Waste Food.

    I have seen to it that my kids get an Easter egg hunt, complete with candies, Cadbury Eggs and a special clue hunt for the solid chocolate bunnies.

    We even have a phrase for the occasion: Choco Bunny Heat Death!

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks, SD. Grief surely has a mind of its own.

    By the way, if you come this way again, you have to stop by. I was crushed last time when you were in southern illinois and also Chicago, i think – I am located between the two – and didn’t get to connect up with you.

  28. 28.

    mai naem mobile

    @WaterGirl: Melissa McCarthys impression of Seam Spicer is surprisingly close to the real thing.

    I’ve also been thinking of my dad recently. He died on his birthday and it was his birthday two weeks ago. I don’t actively keep track of anniversaries anymore, and yet right around the end of March/beginning of April I have this real deep sadness come over me and than I remember it’s when my dad died.

  31. 31.

    MattF

    My dad shows up in dreams every once in a while– and he died over 35 years ago. He shows up, and then disappears.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    What do get when you pour boiling water into a rabbit warren?

    Hot cross bunnies.

    Heh. My own dad’s favorite Easter “joke,” if that’s the right word, was a card I bought him one year. It was a photo of two adorable fluffy newly-hatched baby chicks. One of them says “Who’s the old guy with the beard in a white suit?”

    The other replies, “Colonel Something. He seems nice.”

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    I’m having a cup of joe and girding my loins to drive over to Rockville for Easter lunch with Bro’ Man, his husband and kids and a raft of Brazilian in-laws, relatives and ex-pats. An annual event claimed by Aunt Eloiza. Usually a good time, although I find that I’m done about an hour before the event is. No doubt my eroding social skills as I recede into codgerhood. And this year lamb is rumored to be on the menu. Me no likey.

    Well, duty is duty. And it’ll do me good to get out and about. The weather is beautiful here in NoVA—sunny and 71° right now, going up to 85° later—but I notice that the doughty Kia is coated with green pollen down on the street. That’s new in the last few days. Spring is here with a vengeance!

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: snif….. snif…. OK, I feel better now. ;-)

    As the girl friend of one of my best friends told me a year after his death, “The pain never goes away. You just think of it less often.”

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    I will probably be back that direction in the next couple of years and we will make a point of meeting up. Are you anywhere close to Starved Rock?

  39. 39.

    opiejeanne

    @debbie: About ten years ago we went to A Prairie Home Companion at the Hollywood Bowl and Meryl Streep sang a song about losing that whole generation above ours, and the whole place wept silently. It was “Goodbye to Mama” and Lily Tomlin was supposed to sing it with her but Lily couldn’t be there. They sang it together in the movie and it wasn’t as poignant as Meryl’s solo version.
    The lyrics are here:
    Goodbye To Mama

  40. 40.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:
    Sometimes my Dad appears in my dreams. But, it’s just fleeting. It’s been years since he died, and I still miss him.??
    He did nearly all the cooking in our house as I grew up, so a day like today, the house would be full of wonderful smells.

  43. 43.

    germy

    President Donald Trump says “someone should look into who paid” for the rallies around the country Saturday that urged him to release his tax returns.

    Trump tweeted Sunday: “I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?”

    Trump was the first major-party nominee in more than 40 years not to release his tax returns and he reneged on a campaign commitment to release them. He said they were being audited.

    He tweeted Sunday: “Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday.”

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @mai naem mobile: I know exactly what you mean. I have never been good at remembering anniversaries, in fact, I never really tried. But something deep inside me knows because I experience the exact thing you described. Hugs to you.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Thanks for that. A great piece.

    I have lived in NoVA for 12 years now and haven’t been to see the wall yet. I need to do that. My uncle is on it—1964.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    That’s a really nice picture. I can tell from your face that it was meaningful and solemn for you. What a great tribute to your friend Andy.

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    I had the names in advance so I made sure I went through them all and got the pronunciation right.

    Especially them Polacks, like “Wojciehowicz, you spell it just like it sounds!” :-)

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @WaterGirl: With me it’s my mom and Christmas, which was her favorite holiday. Last Christmas no decorations went up…she loved to decorate for the holidays, and we just couldn’t do it. Perhaps this year.

  60. 60.

    Lapassionara

    Someone, I think it was Baud, asked why the Friday before Easter is called “Good Friday.” I also wondered why we use “happy Easter” for the greeting. Anyway, consensus is that “good” is a reference to “holy,” which is what the day was once called. As for happy Easter, the day does not feel happy to me, but reminds me of loss and grief.

    Why do you suppose we haven’t had anyone complain about a war on
    Easter?

  61. 61.

    p.a.

    Meh. Mother died ’82, father ’84. Holidays just another day to me. Thank FSM my goddaughters are old enough that they are on their own and invite me over so I have excuses to avoid the Holiday Torture Dinners (h/t Eat Drink Man Woman) the family wingnuts invite me to. Stuffing our faces while they go on about how oppressed they are.
    Old out-of-focus b&w photo of a family holiday argument (probably from before I was born) on my tumblr. Way down in the stack. My father’s sister yelling at her brother. Booze-loaded table. Father’s family; 1 day arguments, next day no issues. Mother’s family; 6 months later still not talking to each other. Hard to keep track of who to shun.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Oh, it’s been so long since my dad has been in one of my dreams. I’m you still get to see him even if it’s fleeting. When my dad was in my dreams it would be as if he had never died, we would just be together doing something we would have done, or sometimes I would be at “home” where we grew up and we would just be having a normal day together, as if he wasn’t gone.

    I used to tease my dad that he would come to see me for the tulips in the spring and the tomatoes in august. :-) I’m pretty sure I wasn’t entirely wrong about the motivation.

    So you’re not making lovely cooking smells of your own today?

  63. 63.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: Donald paid for them. With his assholishness. With his arrogance. With his mendacity. With his treason.

    Motherfucker needs to be impeached, removed from office, tossed in prison, and left to rot in the darkest cell they can find. With his vile Ivana spawns in nearby cells.

  64. 64.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Just checked the map, and I see that SR is much closer to Chicago than my memory was telling me! But I do take pleasure in long-distance driving “with no particular place to go,” and meandering home through midstate and southern Illinois is very doable. So we’ll make it happen.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Lapassionara: He is risen, and He is pissed at all these Mammon worshipers who claim to follow him, but don’t. Looking at you, Pat Robertson, Fredrick Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., James Dobson, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, all the rest.

  68. 68.

    geg6

    Made a sweet potato, cashews and peaches casserole to take to my sister’s and prepped everything for my peas, bacon, shallots, pecorino wth prosecco that I’ll put together when I get there. Which means we’ll be drinking prosecco mimosas this afternoon because you can’t let all that yummy prosecco go flat!

  72. 72.

    GregB

    Happy Easter all of you juicers, n’er do wells, malcontents and riff-raff.

    Thanks for running this place John Cole.

  74. 74.

    Corner Stone

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Motherfucker needs to be impeached, removed from office, tossed in prison, and left to rot in the darkest cell they can find. With his vile Ivana spawns in nearby cells.

    For the first time I am slowly letting myself believe this may possibly happen.

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    @geg6:

    Made a sweet potato, cashews and peaches casserole

    All of these ingredients in one dish? How does that come out?

  79. 79.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WaterGirl: Tomorrow will be the 19th anniversary of my father’s death.

    FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH

    Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
    When the last fires will wave to me
    And the silence will set out
    Tireless traveler
    Like the beam of a lightless star

    Then I will no longer
    Find myself in life as in a strange garment
    Surprised at the earth
    And the love of one woman
    And the shamelessness of men
    As today writing after three days of rain
    Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
    And bowing not knowing to what

    (W. S. Merwin)

  80. 80.

    Mnemosyne

    @WaterGirl:

    I remember the Father’s Day of the year he died – I saw a billboard from some retail store and it said “Everybody has a Dad!” And I thought, no, no they don’t. I was so angry at that sign!

    My dad died right after New Year’s in 2013, so the first major holiday after that was Father’s Day. Every goddamned ad I saw that year was an extra knife to my gut, especially since I was born on Father’s Day.

    Christmas was his favorite holiday, and those haven’t been the same, either.

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    we got his attention, he’s feeling irritated/nervous enough to start lie-bragging about the election again

    Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @ realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
    I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?
    Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: We can sit on my new porch and drink mint juleps whatever the hell we feel like drinking. Too Many Jens lives here, too. (not at my house!)

  83. 83.

    Miss Bianca

    So, if anyone was to ask me what I had for dinner last night…I would have to confess that it was jelly beans and beer.

    I didn’t mean for that to be dinner. It just sorta happened that way.

  88. 88.

    Steeplejack

    @Corner Stone:

    Amen. The two I hate the most: (1) Andrea Mitchell ineffectively nattering at Tex Drillerson and (2) Chris Hayes “breaking” Carter Page. If you look at the original video of the latter, Hayes practically blew the interview by repeatedly interrupting Page when he was in the process of voluntarily spilling his guts.

  91. 91.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Went to my loooooooooooooong Orthodox Church service last night – got home around 4 am. I do enjoy it despite being exhausting – realized it had been a few years since I attended a full on service, and until this weekend, hadn’t stepped inside a church of ANY kind since May last year, in Italy, on a bunch of tours of Florence and Siena.

    Didn’t take communion, given my general level of disdain for dogma and divinity – it did not feel respectful to my friends and cousins there, had I chosen to do it.

    Two of three children stayed overnight (nice); I’m cooking the big Lebanese Pascha meal today.

  92. 92.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @geg6:

    Made a sweet potato, cashews and peaches casserole

    That sounds incredibly wonderful, and unexpected. Could you share the recipe? (If not in this thread, perhaps with TaMara, who could put it up some Friday night.)

  93. 93.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Oh, and the 22 year old insisted on an Easter basket, LOL…

  94. 94.

    opiejeanne

    @Lapassionara: I think it’s because the Fundies are the ones making war on Easter. They call it Resurrection Sunday and don’t allow any of the pagan images or symbolism in their references to the date. No dyed eggs, no Easter baskets, no chocolate bunnies. We noticed this trend in the 90s.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: A # of Poles married into my father’s family, a Kamnikar, a Kokolowski, and a Kocurec, for just the ones who married my Aunts. The line tho, comes from “Barney Miller” the greatest cop show ever made for TV, as Detective Stan Wojciehowicz is dealing with some bureaucrat over the phone.

  98. 98.

    HRA

    Happy Easter to all who celebrate it today.

    I had my moment of missing my parents earlier when I saw the red dyed only eggs and lamb roasts on Facebook. I gave all the holidays to my children and I contribute the desserts (rice pudding and baklava today) and homemade bread.

    Strange though true is my CA daughter will be flying in with a 3 hour layover here in Buffalo NY on her way to FL. We will all be together for the first time on this holiday.

    I loved the flowers, Raven.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @OzarkHillbilly: I catch that off and on with one of the nostalgia channels, and I’d forgotten how much I like it, especially Dietrich and Inspector Lugar. And I love the rotating cast of character actors. Funny to think that the 12th precinct is probably now an upscale gastropub or boutique for tiny dog accessories.

  104. 104.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Steeplejack: Chris needs to take lessons from Natasha Romanoff on how to get the interviewee to spill it all without the interviewee even knowing it.

  106. 106.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mnemosyne: Fortunately I have spared my sons all that BS by never celebrating any holiday. Never even had a Father’s Day with either of them post divorce (I couldn’t have given a rat’s ass about it and it did mean a lot to my ex FIL, so have at it Harry) Unfortunately, I inflicted mounds of other BS on their heads.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Loved that show. For me, Wojciehowicz didn’t make me think of the show – that was just like all the names in my neighborhood. (Except my family, we have what we used to call a good German name.)

    edit: as I wrote that i wondered if that “good german name” was intended as slander to others who didn’t have a “good german name”? So many things were “just sayings” where I had no idea of the origin. I thought nothing of “Little Black Sambo” but I am sure I would be appalled if I read it now.

  109. 109.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: It’s a very moving place. I went there one night in winter on my first visit to DC. I was about the only person there…

    Molly’s description is very good, but it’s even more intense being there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @HRA: My mom was greek, so for the Easter holiday we would go to Greek Town in Chicago and get the red colored eggs and the bread that had the colored hard-boiled eggs on them, the good baklava and other greek treats. Always lamb for Easter!

    We are having lamb for dinner today – decided to skip the family thing in Chicago and am having Easter with three roommates from 1975. Two are still really good friends and the third I am very fond of but only see him when the four of us get together. We did this for easter 3 years ago and it felt more like a family holiday than Easter with my family usually does.

  113. 113.

    J R in WV

    Hi Cole: Happy Spring !!! Glad you had some kids around, smart active pleasent kids are a blessing. While we did easter baskets when I was a kid, we never did the special clothes dress up for church thing. My parents were very doubtful about the whole supreme being thing, fortunately.

    Molly … what a gal. Imagine what she would be writing about our “elected” leader. It makes me grin and a chill run down my back all at once.

    I visited the Viet Nam memorial late one December evening. I went to a DBA class with a good friend, and he dragged me. I cried like a baby, knew I would, was why I resisted, glad Steve insisted. It was nearly dark by the time we got there, and quite cold, just a little snowy stuff blowing around.

    I was amazed at how as you walked down the ramp into the heart of that remarkable structure, the sounds and sights of the city went away. It was so quiet down in there! Molly’s piece was moving. I didn’t know anyone’s date to look there, but they keep an alphabetical list, a book, at each end.

    When I turned to my family name, I was shocked to find our unusual name right there. Mark, who very well may have been a cousin. There are people with my name who aren’t relatives, but I’ve never met one, ever.

    Yesterday we went to a friend’s farm, for his 70th birthday. He’s a great guy, proto-typical hippie with long blonde hair and beard, burly from hard work, crazy gifted at making things, building homes and barns and useful farm sheds. He is just now finishing up a two story shed from lumber that was milled fro his trees 30 years ago by another friend.

    Also a great musician and beer maker, plays banjo in a new-age punk rock band based on a commune farm the next county over. Flowers in bloom, trees beginning to leaf out, met some neighbors of his we hadn’t met before, most folks we’ve known 30+ years.

    So good food, I had a beer and a half, and some fizzy water. We left just at dark. There was a downpour as we drove over, when we got there and parked, we waited, and it dwindled away to a few sprinkles, so we got folding chairs and a cooler out.
    I had iced fizzy water and a 6-pack of porter, our friend likes dark beers, makes beer suitable for “The Drawing of the Dark” in the caves beneath Vienna.

    Mrs J has a birthday coming up, she seems to be worrying about getting older, so we’re not going to make a big deal out of it. I’ll fix one of her favs for dinner, crab cakes probably.

    Happy Spring, all, the world is coming back to life again, after the dark snowy cold of winter!!!

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl:

    we should go to Greek Town in Chicago

    I have many happy memories of eating in Greek restaurants in Chicago with the slowly turning spit of meat in the front window.

  117. 117.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @OzarkHillbilly: I remember the first time I read that, it sent chills down my spine. I think I’ve read all of her books and I don’t remember any column that had quite that tone. She often departed from humor to get wonky or outraged, but I don’t remember any other that conveyed that kind of raw emotion, so telling that she used the third person.

  118. 118.

    geg6

    @Corner Stone:
    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It’s delicious. Boil six medium yams/sweet potatoes, washed but unpeeled, for about 30 minutes. Drain and cool. Peel and cut into cubes. Meanwhile, drain a 15 oz. can of sliced peaches. In a small bowl, mix a half cup of packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup of coarsely chopped cashews, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger. In 9×13 baking dish, spread half the sweet potatoes. Top with half the peaches and half the brown sugar mixture. Repeat layers and dot with about 3 tablespoons butter. Cover and bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes.

    Yummy!

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @OzarkHillbilly: LONG LIVE FISH!

    When Rickles died I fell into a youtube rabbit hole of old Dean Martin roasts, and they were doing “Abe Vigoda is still alive!” jokes in the mid-seventies. He gave a very Fish-like reaction take.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: Guess Ivanka has better things to preoccupy herself with.

    Well, with ski season almost over and not really beach weather anywhere for weeks to come, what would one do? Gotta get those last runs in and work on a base for Memorial Day in the Hamptons

  127. 127.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @opiejeanne:

    Those lyrics are pretty maudlin just in print. And not a word about Papa! Maybe he was a jerk.

    Anyway, so much loss in this thread. My father left on Good Friday in ’08, my mother on that Easter Sunday. This holiday is not my favorite.

  129. 129.

    brendancalling

    I’m not religious, and since the woman I was attracted to told me she was seeing someone I really have no plans today other than to go on a run, enjoy some Sour Diesel, and make myself a yummy dinner. Hopefully I’ll find somewhere to watch the Doctor Who series premiere.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:
    Lost my dad in 2001 on St. Pats day. Was sitting on his hospital bed with him in my arm as he passed. I worked for him, with him and then as his boss every day for 25 yrs, besides him just being my dad. He was Scotch/Irish so a friend and I drank a bottle of Jamison in his honor that night after the family drank a toast. He taught me a career, that I still use to this day. He taught me a lot of things, he taught me best of all, humility. In some ways his passing was a relief, he suffered from Alzheimer’s for 20 yrs. But losing your parents is always tough, no matter the reason. They created us, fed us, clothed us, tended to our illnesses, protected us, smothered us. Some did wonderful jobs, some not so much. Some of us grew up like them, some the opposite. Through all, the good and the bad, they were still our parents. We will miss them, till we are gone. Hopefully someone will miss us as much as we miss them, that is the mark they, and we, leave on life.

  131. 131.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ruckus:

    a friend and I drank a bottle of Jamison in his honor

    Ahhh, a good Catholic whiskey, none of that Protestant Bushmills swill. ;-)

    My father succumbed to Alzheimers too. It was a relief when he was gone. Last time I saw him nary a word passed between us, just held hands for about 2 hours.

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    My father left on Good Friday in ’08, my mother on that Easter Sunday. This holiday is not my favorite.

    Wow. That’s a quadruple whammy for you. The obvious one is both parents dying within two days of each other. But then because the dates are moveable, you remember on March 21/23 each year, and again on whatever dates Good Friday and Easter happen to fall on.

    I am so sorry for that loss, and hope the rest of the day is kind to you.

  133. 133.

    Yarrow

    @debbie:

    Guess Ivanka has better things to preoccupy herself with.

    Picking out exactly what shade of orange to use for her prison jumpsuit.

  136. 136.

    hueyplong

    You stone worshiping papists don’t get all the Jameson. Protestants can also reject Bushmills, whatever the hell that is.

  140. 140.

    Joe Falco

    I had picked up a puppy last Sunday. A Chihuahua/Rat Terrier mix that was 3 months old. Got him from a woman online that was trying to get rid of the last of the litter. He seemed ok except for a little shaking but that seemed like nothing to worry about. The next day, he started throwing up. He was still eating ok though but me and my wife were worried if he had parvovirus. Well, it went dramatically downhill from there. My wife stayed up all night trying to nurse him back somehow, using a syringe to feed him liquids. We couldn’t afford a veterinary bill to put him down so we had hoped and hoped the puppy would make it.

    On Good Friday morning, we found him dead. I buried him that same day. The puppy was my wife’s Easter present.

  141. 141.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: He’s mentioned before that he really enjoys the rituals, the traditions, the music, etc. One can appreciate the value of all of that even if one thinks the theological tenants are, er, bogus.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  142. 142.

    normal liberal

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I’m halfway between WaterGirl and Starved Rock, where I went to Girl Scout camp eons ago. Sadly, these are not good times for state parks and such (also state universities) in Illinois.
    Next month it will be 21 years since my father died, three weeks after his cancer diagnosis; he didn’t get the year his doctor thought he had left. We had been planning the guest list for my parents’ 50th anniversary that June, which became the list for notifying people of his death. It took a decade before we could get my mom to decide where to have his ashes buried. His birthday was last week-spring is not a great season for us.

  143. 143.

    zhena gogolia

    @Another Scott:

    Yes, agreed, but he uses rather violent language to express his lack of respect for the religion, to attending the service seems a tad strange.

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Last time I saw him nary a word passed between us, just held hands for about 2 hours.

    Yes that not talking thing. Rather difficult to do when they can’t remember how. I gave him a hand to help him stand up maybe a month before he passed. He damn near broke mine. He was still strong but of course had that little concept left of how to do much of anything issue that Alzheimer’s brings. On the day he passed the hospital staff told us not to touch him, a person whose body is shutting down is not healthy for others. I said fuck that, he’s dad, he held me when I was sick, it’s the least I owe him.

  146. 146.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: I understand his reaction and don’t see much of a contradiction.

    The last church my mom attended was headed by a “doctor” who bragged about his degree from a diploma-mill and preached the prosperity gospel – “Jesus wants you to be rich!!”. He struck me as a blatant charlatan, but I went with her to the service a couple of times. I put money in the collection plate when it came by.

    I didn’t have a problem with that, because it was for her.

    The services are for the people, not for the diety deity. ;-)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    germy

    @Ruckus:

    the hospital staff told us not to touch him, a person whose body is shutting down is not healthy for others.

    What kind of weird bullshit is that?

  150. 150.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ruckus:

    He damn near broke mine.

    Same here, after about 15 mins or so I’d have to switch from one of my arthritic hands to the other.

  151. 151.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:
    Some times you do things you thought you’d never do, for reasons that you had no idea were in your head. You may have repressed them, you may have others who want you to do something you don’t like, you may remember something that happened decades ago that makes the thing you hate, a thing you hate not so much, even for just a moment. Maybe you are trying to keep the peace, maybe you are trying to find some. We try to be rational people, some try harder than others, but sometimes we just fail at rationality.

  153. 153.

    debit

    @Joe Falco: I am so sorry. And I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but if you can’t afford a vet bill you can’t afford a pet. I don’t say this to be cruel, but if you had brought that puppy in for a vet check the day you got him, things might have been different.

    And just a general reminder, if you must by from a breeder, please do a reference check. A reputable breeder would not sell you a sick puppy. Ever.

  154. 154.

    Another Scott

    @debit: I can’t imagine a breeder intentionally making a Chihuahua/Rat Terrier mix. ;-)

    Gentle, please.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  155. 155.

    Bess

    @WaterGirl:

    I thought nothing of “Little Black Sambo” but I am sure I would be appalled if I read it now.

    The story of a courageous Indian or African (depending on the version) boy who outsmarted a pack of dangerous tigers and created a delightful feast for his family?

    (Don’t get me started on how the reputation of Uncle Remus has been destroyed.)

  156. 156.

    Ruckus

    @germy:
    There are lots of processes shutting down, toxins that are being formed and it isn’t actually healthy. They weren’t assholes about it or anything like that, stated it once and then left us alone. No one ever said anything more about it, it’s just a memory that struck me at the time, and it stays in there as a moment on his last day.
    Please don’t make a big deal about it, the hospital didn’t, I sounded like I did but really it was just the day. My memory still seems to work in great detail about some things, this is one of them.

  157. 157.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Good Christians all, I’m sure, tirelessly working to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth

    David Menschel‏
    @ davidminpdx
    Arkansas AG has a staff of 70 working over Easter weekend to ensure 8 executions can take place before end of April.

    I’m sure they’ll be given an hour or two off to go and feel the presence of the Holy Ghost

  159. 159.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Another Scott: I am a stone cold atheist (ex catholic, forget that recovering shit) who still recognizes the positives in religion and knows that the good or ill comes not from the religion but the people who wield it like a sword to wound or a balm to heal. That being said, I could never put money in the plate** of one who preached the prosperity gospel. There is a special place in hell for them and I will do nothing to get in the way of that.

    **I will however give to religious schools, I know it probably helps with the indoctrination but I like to think it may help pay for a play ground or such.

  163. 163.

    debit

    @Another Scott: I really debated about saying anything and truly didn’t intend to hurt. But, pets don’t ask to be brought into our lives. We put them there, and if we do, we must make sure we can care for them.

  167. 167.

    germy

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    That being said, I could never put money in the plate** of one who preached the prosperity gospel.

    SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

    – Ambrose Bierce

  169. 169.

    germy

    MAMMON, n. The god of the world’s leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

    He swore that all other religions were gammon,
    And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.

    – Ambrose Bierce

  174. 174.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: That was lovely, Ruckus. I really appreciate your sharing that. I don’t regret not having kids, but as I get older I do sometimes regret that I am not anyone’s #1 person, and that I have never had the impact on this world in the way that a parent can.

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    OTOH there are memories that I have repressed. Mom used to make us go to church, which I hated. Especially on holidays, like Easter. One xmas my sister gave me a photo album, The Dysfunctional Family Album. In it were many pics that I had forgotten, one especially. I was 5 or 6 and on Easter mom dressed me up in the bright pink suit she thought was adorable. I hated it with a passion. That picture is in that album. That album is the best gift I ever got for xmas, and is one of the ways that I get to remember my sister, and best friend, who passed from cancer a few yrs ago. On mom’s 90th birthday.

  178. 178.

    WaterGirl

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): “This holiday is not my favorite”, wow is that an understatement. What a terrible thing to lose your parents just days apart.

    I had a friend who in the course of one year lost both parents, a brother, and then another sibling was in a terrible accident. I have no idea sometimes how a person keeps getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of another. Peace.

  179. 179.

    ??‍? Martin

    3 of the bunnies are roaming the yard today, enjoying the California weather and dining on rose petals. Barbecue later, our evolved tradition when we decided we were tired of cooking a ham.

  182. 182.

    NotMax

    Still chuckling that they now market a kit to decorate Easter eggs as emojis.

    Looking forward to Betty C’s now traditional butter lamb pix.

  183. 183.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That is very kind of you, SD. Thank you! I’m guessing that the ten year mark next year may sting a bit more, but I don’t really need a special day to mourn or celebrate them.

  184. 184.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: Fuck that, is right. I held my dad’s hand to the end, too. When I got to his bedside he was sort of in a coma already, but when I told him I loved him he squeezed my hand 3 times to say he loved me back.

  185. 185.

    WaterGirl

    @germy: So often you say exactly what I am thinking, and this is one of those times.

    @Ruckus: At least we got the better nurse at the end with my dad, after several hours of my dad holding on long after they expected, she came to us and said that sometimes a person holds on because they are worried about how someone will do without them. As daddy’s girl and the only single daughter, I was the obvious person. I stood in the hallway shaking for several minutes, then went in and told my dad that I loved him and that it was okay for him to go, I would be okay. He died peacefully 10 minutes later.

    I’ll take that nurse over yours, Ruckus, any day.

  186. 186.

    WaterGirl

    @Bess: It’s the name that had me worried, I didn’t actually remember the story. Maybe it’s not as bad as I feared!

  187. 187.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @WaterGirl:

    They both passed at 3:25 in the morning. My father was in hospice. My mom was at home with my sister and I. Romeo and Juliet Syndrome the doctor called it.

    Thank you for your kind words.

    The story of the puppy, Joe, is terrible. To have something done in love turn out so badly… that is so sad.

  188. 188.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:
    Yeah I don’t have kids either. In some ways I regret it, others not so much. I always thought that each generation tries (and often fails) to leave the world a bit better than when they arrived. Now we live in one that wants to tear all that better down, stomp on it and leave a fucking mess. It’s like they walked to the White House, pulled down their pants and took a big steaming one right on the front steps. And they are proud of that. They like the look and the smell of that. I can’t even.
    I feel horrible that we have what we have right now, that we couldn’t stop this, but most of all I feel horrible that we are leaving this big steaming pile for generations to come and to overcome. We maybe haven’t wiped out decades of small changes for the better but assholes are sure trying to. And it’s our kids and their kids that we are leaving this crap to. I’m ashamed that we haven’t been able to advance past fuck you, I’m stealing everything and running you over with my car for so many humans.

  189. 189.

    WaterGirl

    I am headed out to Easter dinner soon, thanks to all for this lovely thread this morning.

    love you guys, WaterGirl

  190. 190.

    stinger

    Thread seems dead — might be a safe place to say that I lost my mother 3.5 weeks ago. Still isn’t real to me, so I’m not feeling any special pangs on this holiday. The day doesn’t mean anything to me, anyway, since I have no kids and have never done the eggs/chocolate thing. So sorry for the pain anyone else may be feeling, for lost parents, Nam buddies, new puppies, and everything else. I love you jackals.

  192. 192.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: Evil is winning the battle, but it won’t win the war. Even now I have hope that the world will right itself – with a lot of help from us. But in the meantime, a lot of people will be hurt and mortally, and we have to do our best to take care of them while the new government is sending them a big fuck you.

    It gives me hope that Barack Obama still believes that our best days are ahead.

    Heading out now for real.

  193. 193.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:
    Wasn’t the nurse, it was the doctor. His specialty was Alzheimer’s. All of his patients die, he is a very good man. As I said to germy he didn’t press, he informed and left us alone. I hold no malice, please don’t either, his job was to make the disease as tolerable as possible, to deal with whatever family was available and to let you know that hospice was in everyone’s best interest but especially his patient’s. I was my dad’s health care person, held his power of attorney, the executor of his will. (also all of that for my mom) I had to be the one to decide to put him in hospice at the end because no one else could make that decision. Hardest and easiest decision I ever made.

  194. 194.

    SFBayAreaGal

    @stinger: My condolences Stinger on the passing of your mom. I hope you will feel safe in sharing your feelings and thoughts of the passing of your mom.

  196. 196.

    Spanky

    Funny how this thread went in the direction of losing loved ones, and it wasn’t until then that I remembered that today is the 17th anniversary of my dad’s death. Good Friday was my mom’s 35th anniversary, and it’s quite shocking, actually, to realize that it’s been that long.

  197. 197.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @stinger:

    I am very sorry. I hope she was as comfortable as possible and that her transition was easy for her. {{{Hugs}}} to you. That sense of numbness and unreality is part of grieving, and from this thread and countless others I suspect most of us know it all too well. Take care of yourself.

  199. 199.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ruckus:

    I had to be the one to decide to put him in hospice at the end because no one else could make that decision. Hardest and easiest decision I ever made.

    Well put.

  200. 200.

    amygdala

    @stinger: Condolences. I found that her birthday, Mother’s Day, and holidays she enjoyed, like Thanksgiving, were especially tough the first year or two. It’s gotten a little easier with time. Please be kind yourself.

  201. 201.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: I am dressed and food is ready to go, just checked in again. Not to worry about what you said about the doctor, it’s already forgotten. I know what you mean about hardest and easiest decision you ever made.

    Dogs barking, my ride is here, best to all.

  202. 202.

    J R in WV

    @stinger:

    Sorry for your loss. My mom died in 1997, after a long fight with COPD caused by Pall Malls. But, really, she is still with me when I need her, just as my dad, who died on election day, 2004, is always available when I think of how to proceed.

    Hang in there. B-J is a good place to hang, there’s almost always someone here to talk with when you need company at 2 am.

    ETA, comma-ology.

    oddly, the edit window wanted to paste in a bunch of weirdness when I typed a comma into my text… I canceled out a couple of times, finally loaded a space into my clipboard, that seemed to fix it. strange!

  203. 203.

    Bess

    @WaterGirl:

    It’s the name that had me worried

    I grew up in the segregated South in the 1940s and 1950s. There were words which were racist but not hatefully racist. Older black people were called “Aunt” or “Uncle”, not Mrs. or Mr. Young black children were often referred to as Sambo (if they were boys) or pickinies (if they were young).

    I’m not defending the use of those words. It’s just how one spoke then. And at the same time people didn’t use “black” or “African” because those words were insults, a milder version of nigger (or nigra as we sometimes heard). The polite word was colored.

    Over time the meaning of words change.

    As a white kid growing up where and when I did Little Black Sambo was a character we admired. Uncle Remus was a wise man who taught us things we needed to know. Both probably helped us move away from racism over time.

  204. 204.

    J R in WV

    @Bess:

    Well said, thanks. The first time I saw signs about who could excrete where, or drink from which spigot, I was astounded and puzzled, late 1950s or early 1960s on the way to Florida. Travel teaches many lessons.

  205. 205.

    Steve in the ATL

    Well, this got depressing fast. It’s been a few years, but my father died on Christmas day. And this past December my stepfather died two weeks before Christmas, almost on my dad’s birthday. Easter, so far, is untainted for me, though I did not strike the ball consistently yesterday when golfing with my daughter.

  206. 206.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bess:

    Uncle Remus was a wise man who taught us things we needed to know.

    I am reminded once again that, to my shame, I’ve never visited The Wren’s Nest (Joel Chandler Harris’ home) despite having lived in Atlanta for 33 years. Adding it right now to my list of things to do soon.

  207. 207.

    Another Scott

    @SiubhanDuinne: We visited there on a “field trip” when I was in grade school. It was an interesting place, but (IIRC), they had one room that was “untouched” from his last days. The wall paper was peeling off the walls and there was dust everywhere. I think they carried the “untouched” bit a little too far… :-/ Here’s hoping they restored it by now.

    I too see the good and bad in the Uncle Remus stories. They’re traditional tales with good lessons (use your wits, don’t take things as insults, don’t take a trickster’s words at face value, etc.), but the illustrations of many of the stories were terribly racist. I enjoyed the Disney film as a kid, but it would make me cringe (and more) now…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  208. 208.

    Ruckus

    @Bess:
    Quite a few years ago (25ish?) while working in professional sports a bunch of us (12-15) went out to dinner. In Brainerd MN. One of the older gentlemen, Larry, an Indiana resident and a closet racist used the word pickinie to describe a young black girl on a school outing as she walked in the restaurant. The number of people who were horrified that he would even think this amazed me. The people who were horrified amazed me even more as I didn’t expect it at all from most of them. I felt better about a lot of people that day. Larry not so much.

  209. 209.

    Bess

    @Another Scott:

    it would make me cringe (and more) now…

    Why?

    It’s been decades since I’ve seen the movie. I can’t recall anything that was cringeworthy. Would seeing a Shakespearean play in which characters dressed and spoke as people of that time make you cringe?

  210. 210.

    Another Scott

    @Bess: It’s been decades since I saw it too, but this clip from the movie seems pretty cringe-worthy to me. (Even moreso than the usual Disney “adults don’t understand poor fatherless boy and his dog and his wisdom” stuff from the time).

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  211. 211.

    Bess

    @Another Scott: I watched the first minute. I’ve got a limited bandwidth allowance and don’t want to spend ten minutes trying to see what bothers you. Can you give me a point in the clip where you think things turn sour? Or explain what cringes your cringe?

  212. 212.

    satby

    @Joe Falco: That’s awful, so sorry. He probably did have parvo. But he was loved and cared for as best as he could be his last hours, so thank you for that. Sometimes that’s the only solace we can take.

  214. 214.

    Another Scott

    @Bess: E.g. 2:53 – 4:30 or so.

    Remus being on a step lower than her, having to take his hat off, being disobeyed by the little white kids, the mom not listening to Remus’s explanation, his subservient body language, etc., etc.

    Yeah, these are standard tropes (the mom who doesn’t understand, the kids and their dog, the adult that understands the kids but the parents don’t listen to, etc.) in Disney movies of the time, but it’s still cringe-inducing to these eyes because of the power disparity between the races here.

    Again, YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  215. 215.

    gbbalto

    @stinger: Very sorry, stinger – Lots of wisdom in this thread to help you get through it.

    ETA: Lost my father 3-1/2 years ago – the grief comes and goes but things get better

  216. 216.

    Bess

    @Another Scott:

    I grew up in conditions like that.

    Black people, either sex any age, would step off the sidewalk and into the street if there was a white person walking toward them.

    At the wholesale hardware where we bought supplies for our store there was a water cooler for “Whites Only” and a ordinary water for “Colored” right beside it.

    On the city bus there was a black line drawn about halfway back the bus. The line ran across the floor, up the sides, and across the roof. There was a sign that said “Colored behind the line”. I’ve gotten on the bus to find the front of the bus almost empty and people crammed into the rear of the bus in a fashion one sees on very crowded subway cars.

    Wrong? Of course. But neither the book or movie was about racial injustices. They were about retelling Aesop’s fables through the voice of a wise but uneducated and poor black man. And telling those tales and lessons to white children. What was important at that time, IMHO, was not to be pushing directly for societal changes but to start people thinking about how wisdom is not the sole posession of light skinned people. Seeing people with darker skin as people who can be wise and kind was an important step. Not unlike having gays come out of the closet so that we could start to understand that discriminating against them made no sense.

  217. 217.

    Another Scott

    @Bess: Well said, and all true.

    But interpretations of art always have a cultural context. Times are different now, and a movie like that version of “Song of the South” released now would be unlikely to have your interpretation among many/most of the people who saw it.

    This CNN piece from 2007 (8:47) goes into the pros and cons of Disney releasing it on digital formats for the US. The idea of including an “extra” on the making of the film, the issues with discrimination of the times, etc., would probably be a worthwhile addition to a released version, but I assume that few would actually watch it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  218. 218.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    As you and I have talked before, I need to go to DC to see the wall. I think I will just have to plan it, and then do it, before I can sit back down on my ass and procrastinate some more. Have thought a lot about the last time we talked about this and realized that I need to spend time in DC, to see the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, all those things that represent us, tell us who we are, where we have been and hopefully what we have learned. The wall is one of those things. Maybe the most important, maybe not most but still very important. When I was in Wellington, New Zealand I went to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa which is it’s national museum. If you are ever in Wellington, go. I found it one of the most fascinating museums I’ve ever been in. I bet ours is as good.

  219. 219.

    Bess

    @Another Scott:

    a movie like that version of “Song of the South” released now would be unlikely to have your interpretation among many/most of the people who saw it

    Agreed.

    But my Uncle Remus was/is the book. I don’t recall seeing the movie.

    I’m saddened about how we now commonly disparage the good uncle based on our feelings about the movie and have lost the wisdom of the book.

  220. 220.

    Ksmiami

    @??‍? Martin: For a second, I thought you wrote that you were going to barbecue the rose petal eating bunnies later (OMG), I mean rabbit can be tasty and all but it seems wrong to eat a bunny on Easter. Phew

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