Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

We still have time to mess this up!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The revolution will be supervised.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Open Thread: More Notes from Today’s Boston Farce Rally

Open Thread: More Notes from Today’s Boston Farce Rally

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262Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Boston counterprotester just told MSNBC reporter “We are stronger together” hmmmm where have I heard that phrase before

    Probably read it in an email.

  6. 6.

    efgoldman

    Even though I haven’t lived there for many years, SO proud of my home town.
    The mayor and BPD said in advance what was going to happen, and it did.
    Poor nazi snowflakes didn’t like being shouted down and fiercely outnumbered, and being left without their bang bang phalluses

    Fuckem

  8. 8.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Attention, North Carolinians: You will have ONE chance to weigh in on redistricting. Check out this thread.

    The guy doesn’t know how to thread, but if you want to see the entire thread, click on the first tweet.

  10. 10.

    lamh36

    Ok guys I have a story to share with you. Shared it on my FB page and twitter but was waiting for an OT to post here at BJ.

    So there’s this new old white lady tech (OWLT) in the Core lab. She’s got to be over 65 if she not 70. She literally started less than a month ago, so she’s in “training” now. Core lab has about 10-15 people or so at any given time M-F. The ratio of Black to White is actually about split evenly, with a small majority being white.

    So one day, OWLT was walking into work, and when she passed the one Black Lady Tech (BLT) she said something like “hey my lil monkey” I don’t know it the BLT really heard her fully, since she was kinda busy so she let it go. But then, when OWLT was leaving for lunch OWLT said “see ya later monkey”! This time the BLT heard her and she was taken aback…and she stopped OWLT and told her “excuse me…what did you call me”. OWLT said “oh…what? my lil monkey?” BLT said…yes that. Do you know how offensive that is?” OWLT said “oh, you are taking it the wrong way, it’s just a nickname, like I give my dogs!!!” BLT looked at OWLT & was looking like…

    So BLT spoke to the supervisor and told her point blank she needs to talk to OWLT and that she was NOT working with OWLT again…


    Supevisor spoke to OWLT and AGAIN OWLT says “she’s (BLT) is taking it the wrong way”. Supervisor tells OWLT, it doens’t matter if OWLT thinks BLT is taking it the wrong way.     She needed to respect BLT’s wishes and anyone else in the future who feels offended. OWLT was taken aback that she got in trouble for it and I’m sure of course she was mad at BLT for speaking to the supervisor about it.

    Ain’t that some shit!

  15. 15.

    lamh36

    this chick got some damn nerve…smh

    @IvankaTrump
    1:2 It was beautiful to see thousands of people across the U.S.A come together today to peacefully denounce bigotry, racism & anti-semitism.
    7:59 PM – Aug 19, 2017

  18. 18.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    So I’m down behind confederate lines here, in Charleston SC for eclipse madness.

    Had Carolina BBQ for dinner, with sides of black-eyed peas and collard greens. Think I gave myself away as a Yankee when I ordered the unsweetened iced tea.

    Expedia/Hotwire are doing terrible things with booking. The hotel room I prepaid months ago was not here when I arrived because apparently they’ve been taking people’s last minute money all day and booking rooms that don’t exist. So when people like me show up late arrival, there’s nothing left.

    I’m still not sure what miracle the desk clerk pulled, but she managed to actually get us all in before having her nervous breakdown.

  19. 19.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    I’m hoping that if there’s one good thing to come out of this shit show in Charlottesville, and the wider shit show now going on in Washington, it’s that maybe this ugliness has brought the fascist, racist rot out into the open in a way that Republican politicians can’t look the other way about it any longer.

    Republicans have wooed racists since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts went through. They thought they could ride these voters to election wins, year after year, and for a long time, it worked. Until this rump took over the party. Now the racists are running the show, led by the clown in the White House, and his flunkies.

    And as long as the racists behaved themselves and kept out of the news, it worked. Lately, though, they’ve been oozing out into the light, feeling boldened by Trump, a guy they rightly saw as one of them.

    At Charlottesville, though, things got out of hand, and the big secret, the open secret that so many of us have been winking and nodding at for 50 years, well, they blew it out of the water. Nobody can look away any longer. Nobody can wink and nod any longer. Maybe the Republican Party can find it within themselves to root these people out of the party and cast them back into the political outer darkness they belong in.

    I don’t know if they can do that. I don’t know if they have it within themselves, but I hope so. The country can’t afford to have one of its political parties in thrall to fascism and racism. We have to, though. This country can’t go on this way. Something has to break, either the Republican Party or the United States. I hope it’s the Republican Party. We can’t go on this way much longer. Now, thanks to Trump, maybe we won’t have to.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Honus: Regardless of where it was, he’s none to bright:

    “It hurts my heart that people come out here and misappropriate Robert E. Lee and the Confederate flag for their personal agendas,” he said.

    The moron is carrying a modified battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, not a Confederate flag.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    There is a better version of this set to Ashokan Farewell with a guy reading lines as if a letter from KBs Civil War series.
    “Jeremy is keeping our spirits up with tales of his hot girl friend. She lives in Canada”
    “If I fall on the field of battle tel my mother I lover her dearly . . . and she should NOT look at my browser history”

    Its hilarious

  23. 23.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @lamh36: uh huh. And why would you give a human the pet name you call your dogs? And how many other coworkers got the nickname treatment?

    Even if she’s not lying about intent, there are some elements of common courtesy and professionalism missing here.

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: Like the freedom from having to make child support payments. And the freedom from being held to account by the courts for the failure to make child support payments. And the freedom to not be made fun of by people that have noted that you have gotten into legal trouble for failing to make child support payments.

  29. 29.

    efgoldman

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Even if she’s not lying about intent, there are some elements of common courtesy and professionalism missing here.

    I assume there’s some kind of process that has to be followed to discipline the old hag.
    At Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, she’d get one warning and then out the door.

  30. 30.

    Patricia Kayden

    @lamh36: She can shut the hell up. Her dad condemned those very same peaceful anti-Nazi protesters in Boston as anti-police agitators.

  40. 40.

    Inventor

    @lamh36:Another approach:
    “Hi Shitstain! Don’t take it the wrong way, it’s just my little nickname for people I think are shitstains.”

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: the other side of the story is that some of the older white techs thought it was funny, but the Black techs quickly set them straight and of course they stop smiling and giggling bout it.

    At least the younger white techs, were as outraged as the Black techs…so hey that’s a silver lining…the youths may indeed be the future

  43. 43.

    lamh36

    Dang… RIP D.Gregory!

    @rolandsmartin
    BREAKING NEWS: Legendary comedian and activist @IAmDickGregory has died. He was 84. He was a true legend and barrier breaker

  44. 44.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @efgoldman:

    At Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, she’d get one warning and then out the door.

    Back when I was in Satan’s employ, I don’t think a new hire would get one warning for that, they be gone.

  45. 45.

    khead

    We who want freedom & limited government will have no other choice but to secede.

    My stock response nowadays for stuff like this is “I loved Bioshock!”

  46. 46.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman:
    And freedom from critical thinking. And the freedom to refuse to serve fags, n*ggers, and libtard pinkos of course.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36:

    Literally my FAV movie ever.

    I find this hard to believe given that Idris Elba is not in Dirty Dancing.

  54. 54.

    Gemina13

    @lamh36: What. The. Unholy. FUCK.

    Glad the younger techs stood up for what was right, but . . . okay, I’m Gen-X, wrong generation, but that was seriously fucked-up bullshit from OWLT. I’m glad she was set straight on it. And WTF was that about nicknaming a woman “like I do my dogs”?! I don’t think I can use the word “fuck” enough to emphasize how utterly wrong and offensive that is.

  57. 57.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT: What should I take to the neighborhood potluck. I only know three of my neighbors, and that too not that well. Usually just encounter them on my runs and we exchange pleasantries. I am thinking Turkish potato salad, with red onions and lime and olive oil with a garnish of parsley and mint.

  58. 58.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Miss Bianca:

    There was a similar video with images from the Bundy/Oregon ranger station takeover, but the Ashoken Farewell music was later removed for copyright infringement. The replacement music just didn’t work.

  61. 61.

    Honus

    @Adam L Silverman: completely agree. I saw him Tuesday, shortly before the C’ville police escorted him out of what we all now call Heyerdahl Park. Later in the day a friend and I were discussing the weekend’s events and this incident came up and his comment was “I guess you have the right to protest while carrying a rifle but he might have picked a little better time”

  62. 62.

    dmsilev

    @lamh36: Yikes. No words. I hope that the conversation that the supervisor had included some variation on “if you do this again, you’re fired”.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary? Don’t waste your time. If you’re willing to do hard reading – as in every page is just well sourced and cited fact after fact, read Caton’s Centennial History of the Civil War. It is hard going, but it is worth it.

    For more recent stuff, for instance on the use of insurgent tactics during the Civil War, there’s the work of my friend and former colleague Chris Keller. His stuff is excellent. And given the recent 150 year anniversary there have been excellent C-Span shows running all weekend at night about the Civil War. All the ones I’ve seen have been very good, but look for the one by my friend and former colleague Mike Neiberg. He’s primarily a WW I historian, but he gave a very interesting comparative talk at this June’s civil war conference at Gettysburg College.

    I also recommend these both by former colleagues:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dJbsaqZFa4
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrXxz4iniRs

  66. 66.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Adam L Silverman: Well it did a tongue bath on Robert E. Lee, plus gave us Nathan Bedford Forrest, a good clean image, well maybe that Fort Pillow thing a tad over done., but hey a new generations of Yahoos had a general greater than Stonewall.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @schrodingers_cat: The theme music to Ken Burns’ Civil War. The best remembered sequence, which is being called back to in that original tweet up top, is this, where the music plays in the background as a letter from a Union soldier to his wife is being read.

  69. 69.

    schrodingers_cat

    @efgoldman: Does it have anything to do with Ashoka*, who ruled over most of India (238 BC and was responsible for the spreading Buddhism in the rest of Asia.

    * He was a blood thirsty despot and conqueror before his conversion to Buddhism.

    ETA: OK, I saw that you answered my question as I was writing this comment. Thanks.

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Boston counterprotester just told MSNBC reporter “We are stronger together” hmmmm where have I heard that phrase before ?

    Seems to me the phrase is coming up a lot. Pretty sure one, maybe two of service chiefs used it in their C-Ville inspired tweets.

  75. 75.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I never found Foote as terrible as some people. His books make it pretty clear he has no sympathy for their cause, that they were wrong and needed to lose. He does express sympathy for the foot soldiers and respect of some of the better generals (I do bristle at his embrace of Forrest) but points out their evil deeds too. I thought the books better than what was put on the series.

  77. 77.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Mr Stagger Lee:
    So Lee was just as American as Washington, yet he wasn’t fighting the United States, he was fighting the “North”? Apparently Walsh doesn’t understand that the “North” was the United States.

  78. 78.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: Well at 10 years old…I only had eyes for Patrick Swayze…from pre-teen crush…to forever love…lol.

    Idris is my grown azz woman crush, into my old age I’m sure…lol

  81. 81.

    efgoldman

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Does it have anything to do with Ashoka*, who ruled over most of India (238 BC and was responsible for the spreading Buddhism in the rest of Asia.

    I dunno’, but in researching it several times for concert notes I never saw any such reference.

  85. 85.

    Millard Filmore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And the freedom to …

    Does he support the freedom to outlaw gays?
    How about the freedom to outlaw inter-racial marriage?
    The freedom to outlaw sex outside of marriage?
    The freedom to outlaw bikinis at the beach?

    Does he run around with the type of freedom loving groups that want to bring back the joy of lynchings?

    (no answer is required or expected)

    (oops, fixed a typo)

  87. 87.

    TKinNC

    @Cheryl Rofer: This is an NC-centric comment — Proposed NCGA house districts are here –
    http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/DocumentSites/browseDocSite.asp?nID=356&sFolderName=\2017%20House%20Redistricting%20Plan
    Public comment guidelines –
    http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/house2017-183/8-22-2017/Rules%20of%20Public%20Comment%202017.final.pdf
    I don’t think the new NCGA Senate districts are out yet but they are supposed to be available no later than Monday morning.

  88. 88.

    lamh36

    @dmsilev: It did. Her job was already on the line because her performance so far has been subpar, but she’s still on probation…so she has room to improve and they are allowed to keep her in that position, or decline to have her continue with employment.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Honus: I’m not a big fan of protesting armed. I’m not, nor have I ever claimed to be, a 2nd Amendment absolutist, so for me showing up to a protest open carrying isn’t protesting, it’s intimidation. Just because one can do something doesn’t mean someone should. And doing so dressed in tacticool cosplay is even dumber and more dangerous. And serves no purpose other than to intimidate and threaten. That’s not really about liberty. That’s actually about tyrannizing those that don’t agree with you.

  92. 92.

    Schlemazel

    @dmsilev:
    Battle Cry of Freedom is my recommendation for a first effort to understand the war.

    I liked Footes first volume because it laid out the case that the was was only about slavery and did so by showing how all economic claims were really only slave driven. He fully blamed the South for the war and I don’t recall any sympathy for the cause. The second and third books were hard to follow because they looked at the war day by day so they jumped around a bit.

    Caton also shows that slavery was the only cause but not in the detail Foote did

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: @Schlemazel: I’ve never read Foote’s stuff, and I enjoyed the Burns series overall– I watched it soon after I had read McPherson’s Battle Cry Freedom— but I do remember thinking that the way Foote talked sounded a bit Noble Cause-sympathetic, much like Sharra’s Killer Angels, which I had listened to as an audiobook around the same time. I used to kind of period binge in my reading. Now it’s the opposite, I jump all over the place.

  97. 97.

    Mel

    @lamh36: I can’t even imagine why OWLT is still employed there after that. That woman needs to go! So glad your coworker and the supervisor called her out on it.

  98. 98.

    J R in WV

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I called our hotel in western KY last night to be sure we still had a room. Yep! It didn’t sound like they were flooded with people, so far. I’m hoping that seriously rural Kentucky isn’t as popular as other places that are already hugely popular with tourism.

    Just plan to keep heading south from the Ohio River, which we will be able to see from the hotel room window…

    We tend to go to bed around 12, go to sleep around 1 am, get up 10 am or so. That would make it hard to get into totality in a timely manner. I would like to be on the road by 7 or 8. Fingers crossed!!!

  100. 100.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And serves no purpose other than to intimidate and threaten. That’s not really about liberty. That’s actually about tyrannizing those that don’t agree with you.

    I expect we’ll see a lot of that when the Phoenix rally happens.

  101. 101.

    Schlemazel

    @dmsilev:
    Dammit, I had a post eaten by FYWP. I agree about Battle Cry of Freedom and would recommend it for anyone that wanted a very good primer on the war.

    Foote’s first volume goes into a lot of detail to show that any claim the war was not about slavery is wrong that all economic and political complaints were driven by the peculiar institution. I did not care for his style for the next two books.

  104. 104.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mr Stagger Lee: It’s like he was designed in a lab– a lab run by Lamh’s should’ve been fired co-worker, OWLT– to be mocked by liberals, and people with opposable thumbs

    @lamh36: I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this will not be the last such incident, and that co-worker will no longer be a co-worker by Oct 1.

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat: Did you get any guidelines? Like bring a salad or dessert or something? Or is it just bring whatever? Did they tell you if there’s going to be a main course provided?

    The Turkish potato salad sounds good. I’d bring something you know you can make fairly dependably and is okay sitting out for awhile (if it’s going to be outside).

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s interesting, I find the Killer Angels less lost cause/sympathetic to the Confederacy as humanizing of the principals involved. It is, perhaps, my favorite historical fiction novel about the Civil War.

  116. 116.

    Schlemazel

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    I went through a period where I read everything I could find on the ACW. I estimate something like 200 books. There is some horrible garbage out there including way too many that are actual treason sympathisers. Maybe that is why I don’t think Foote is so bad. Many are eminently forgettable, many rehash earlier works and add nothing. I wouldn’t do it again but there were some ponies under all that shit

  121. 121.

    Honus

    @Adam L Silverman: you mean Bruce Catton’s trilogy, right? I’ve been trying to tell people to read that for years, but all they want is Foote. I agree with you, Foote is heavily infused with lost cause bullshit, Catton was a real historian and a great writer to boot.

  125. 125.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Yarrow: The hostess is going to provide a chicken entree, a veggie entree, couple of side dishes. Its outside. The potato salad is pretty good, cold or at room temp. Its always been a hit. She told me that I could bring anything I want.

  126. 126.

    zhena gogolia

    @lamh36:

    Have you seen the episode of Inspector Lynley that Elba was on? He doesn’t have a large role, but he’s really good in it.

  128. 128.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Adam, as you’re here, may I ask an off-topic question I’ve not seen you address? What do you make of that investigator’s sudden departure from Mueller’s investigation (and curious reassignment to FBI HR)?

  130. 130.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: my recollection– somewhat vague, I grow old and my civil war binge was a long time ago– was that it was almost hagiographic about Lee and Longstreet, but I may be confusing the book with the Martin Sheen’s mannered performance in the film version. Also, I don’t like Sheen and that may color my recollection

  135. 135.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I agree his is a better read I am just saying Foote is not as terrible (IMHO) and that his first book does a very good job of explaining the economic and political realities of a slave society and why slavery was the only cause and the SOuth brought it on themselves. It has been like 25 years so maybe I am conflating it with other books but I remember at the time thinking it was a very good job.

    I think the faults of KBs series are his and they took what they wanted from Foote. I said at the time what was on that show was not the same tone as his book

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Honus: Yep. I’ve got the 5 volume paperback boxed set. Inherited it from my Dad. For some reason the paperback is broken down differently than the hardback.

  139. 139.

    Hungry Joe

    Why is everybody falling for this “eclipse” crapola? Like, the moon is REALLY going to block out the sun? Please. This is just astronomers cooking up crackpot theories so that they can get funding; they study for years to earn advanced degrees, then spend their whole careers putting in 60-hour weeks spewing out lies. … No, wait, that’s climate scientists. Right. Climate scientists. All the other scientists in the world are on the up-and-up, but not these guys. Because … well, just because.

  142. 142.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat: The potato salad sounds like a good plan. Goes with lots of things, safe and tastes good at any temp. Plus you are confident making it.

    Just for fun you could also bring a small bowl of one of your chutneys that you talk about. If people like it then that might give you some insight into whether they’re more adventurous eaters.

  144. 144.

    lamh36

    Nice online article from Hollywood Reporter on Dick Gregor.

    Dick Gregory, Trailblazer of Stand-Up Comedy, Dies at 84 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dick-gregory-dead-stand-up-comedy-legend-civil-rights-activist-was-84-1004479 via @thr

    “..Gregory wrote a profound 1964 autobiography titled Nigger, which described his impoverished childhood and the racism he experienced. He wrote a note in the foreword: “Dear Momma, wherever you are, if ever you hear the word ‘nigger’ again, remember they are advertising my book.”

  145. 145.

    Matt McIrvin

    @efgoldman: If our society survives this at all intact, we could see the beginning of a change of heart about open carry. Even if nobody gets shot, it’s the difference between a situation in which people are advocating terrible ideas, and one in which they’ve taken over the area and know they can get away with things.

    It was the one thing that Charlottesville had in common with the Dallas police shooting, too–there were people legally open-carrying at the demonstration that the shooter used for cover. In that case, the open-carriers were well-behaved, but it still complicated the search for the shooter.

    (“An armed society is a polite society”, hell.)

  147. 147.

    randy khan

    @TaMara (HFG):

    The notion of a black woman bringing them to safety is just delicious.

    I’m going to guess that they’ll be telling a different story on their precious alt-right message boards tonight.

  149. 149.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): I think that the supposition that Maddow referenced last night made sense: he’s been reassigned to drudge duty at the FBI because of the DOJ Office of the Inspector General investigation into how the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails were handled. I think this makes the most sense, so as an Occam’s Razor explanation I’m inclined to accept it until presented with something concrete. Especially given Mueller’s reputation for probity and integrity. Having anyone with any potential conflicts, such as being even tangentially part of an IG investigation, would be used to pick his findings apart, so better to wall the team off. Moreover, given the allegations about the NY Field Office in regard to the email investigations, especially the OCT 2016 one, it is likely that Mueller’s team is investigating personnel from that field office. Comey intimated as much during his testimony the week before the President fired him, So this too would be a reason to create distance to avoid an appearance of impropriety.

    I also don’t think it is cause for tremendous concern. Mueller’s team has a lot of folks with overlapping experience that includes counterintelligence and he has access to/is now overseeing the Interagency CI task force looking into this stuff. So I’m not concerned at all.

  150. 150.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: I made myself wait to read all the comments before responding to your story, but holy fuck, that makes my blood boil. Seriously. That woman should be out of a job. I’m thinking she’s not that stupid; she just plays all innocent and gets away with it.

    Oh, and I was glad to read your explanation of your utter disloyalty to our guy, Idris!

  151. 151.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Next door neighbors of mine were an Indian family of 3 generations and grandmom stayed home and cooked. Their kitchen was on our side of their house and every day when I’d come home the smell was divine. But the taste of Indian food never matched the smell for me. Coffee is the same way, love the smell, can not drink it. Oh well there is lots of other good stuff to eat on this planet.

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It treated pretty much everyone with kid gloves. Longstreet came out as the tragic hero/Cassandra of the Army of Northern Virginia in the book. Lee came out looking like an old, doddering, naif.

  153. 153.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I reread it io participate in TNCs book club. It was the most fun I have had with non-fiction. People were always adding and expanding & there were some great folks there. It reminded me a lot of the ACW listserv I subscribed to in the early 90s. Plus, when the flying monkeys showed up they got spanked pretty good

  154. 154.

    Honus

    @Adam L Silverman: I agree totally. I grew up in West Virginia and was taught to shoot by WWII veterans and gun safety was drilled into me. It was a strict rule to clear your weapon as soon as you left the range or the woods and absolutely forbidden to bring a loaded weapon into the house.
    West Virginia surprisingly also had some of the strictest gun laws in the nation until recently. It was pretty much completely forbidden to carry a handgun in any circumstances. You could have a rifle or shotgun in a gun rack in a truck during the daylight hours during hunting season. After dark it had to be broken down and put in the trunk or behind the seat, out of sight.

    The people that trained me would consider that kid in the park, and the militia that roamed around charlottesville last weekend, to have shown themselves unfit to own or use firearms. I despise the whole open carry thing (and the unqualified concealed carry frenzy too) and by noting that the kid a right to do it in no way meant it as an endorsement.

  157. 157.

    NotMax

    @Another Scott

    It’s much lower budget (a TV movie pilot for a proposed series) and decidedly cheesier but essentially the same premise from several years before Galaxy Quest which you might also like, then – The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space.

    Worth it just to watch Ron Perlman leave no piece of scenery unchewed.

  158. 158.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Schlemazel: You’re probably right. I didn’t try to get through Foote till after the documentary came out, so it is likely coloring my impression and evaluation of even his first volume.

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Matt McIrvin:

    “An armed society is a polite society”,

    because everyone is scared to be anything but to those who are armed. Feudal Japan was very, very polite as a society. It was also incredibly hierarchical and those with the arms commanded the politeness of everyone else.

  166. 166.

    Schlemazel

    @WaterGirl:
    I worked at NASA with a Chinese-American who did not suffer fools gladly. We had a 70 year old guy that worked with us who was the same sort of fool. The Wed before Thanksgiving he asked my friend “what do you people do your Thanksgiving”. His answer was perfect “We stir fry a turkey”

  167. 167.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dan LamotheVerified account @ DanLamothe
    Mattis will make a trip starting tonight to Ukraine, Jordan and Turkey. Washington Post is among several news outlets not invited.

    paul mcleary‏Verified account @ paulmcleary 3h3 hours ago
    Several outlets were invited, completed visa paperwork, and then disinvited just this week. No convincing explanation why.

  168. 168.

    efgoldman

    . @lamh36: I saw him live at the old Donnelly Memorial Theater on Mass Ave, a block down from Symphony Hall. some time in the 60s.
    My kosher grandparents, for whom English was at best their second or third language, had no idea what they were in for. I think they got the tickets as part of a series.

  169. 169.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: I find, and schroedinger’s cat can forgive me if she feels the need, or, perhaps, curse my name, that a good entry way is tandoori. Not too hot. Will appeal to those who like Mediterranean or Middle Eastern food. But that’s just me.

  172. 172.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s a great picture, but I didn’t fully appreciate it until I read the story just now.

    That photo was from Charlottesville from Tuesday – after Heather Heyer was killed and over a dozen were seriously injured on Saturday. And of course he had two guns on him at the time.

    Lara Rogers is a brave woman, and he is a stupid, stupid man.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    The old West was an armed society and it was not polite. Everyone drank heavily, people ended up dead over nothing and life was cheap.

    That is why almost every frontier town had a no guns allowed policy. You went to the sheriff’s office & gave him your shootin arn which he held for you until you left town

  174. 174.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Remember everyone in Netanyahu’s coalition government is both farther to the right than he is and actually worse than he is. As much as I’m going to have significant spilkas if he should be convicted and sent to prison, they will be tempered by the reality that whoever replaces him is actually going to range from worse to orders of magnitude worse.

  176. 176.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: Thanks for the link. That makes me feel really hopeful. Except for the death threats, of course. Maybe speaking out will be contagious.

  177. 177.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): I’m flattered. The other supposition that she referenced, that he was the source of the leak about the Manafort no knock warrant is also plausible. As long as Mueller is doing his thing I’m not too concerned. Everything else around what he’s doing/about what he’s doing is noise.

  180. 180.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: This has happened several times now. No one is sure if this is Mattis or the folks that came over on the transition landing team restricting access. Given that the office the President set up to vet political appointments just hosed the long time uniformed Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, who was encouraged to retire so he could be given one of these appointments as the civilian overseeing communication and public affairs at DOD, my guess is it’s the landing team knuckleheads.

  182. 182.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mel: If she worked where I worked and was on probation, she’d be out since she has few appeal rights. I’m sure she knew she was being offensive.

  183. 183.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    You have my full permission to tell everyone that your white friend (me) says that’s fucked up and your co-worker was totally right to complain. Adjust for workplace telling. ?

    ETA: I guarantee you that Old White Lady’s whine will be, “But my black friend says …” so feel free to invoke me to counter that BS.

  186. 186.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    It’s not the heat that’s the problem, it’s the taste. Just doesn’t do it for me.
    I stayed with a friend from Jalisco, Mexico for a year and he likes hot. I had no trouble keeping up with him, including eating peppers straight. And an OH friend of mine who passed earlier this year makes me look like american cheese is too hot. But my heat tolerance was second only to him in our group of lunch eaters when I lived/worked there. So I’m sure it’s not the heat.

  187. 187.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    but . . . but . . . but . . . I watched Gunsmoke and The Rifleman and The Adventures of Wyatt Earp and that is not how it was at all! Heck the Cartwrights didn’t even carry guns most of the time

  190. 190.

    ArchTeryx

    @lamh36: I used to use a Polish proverb that goes, simply ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’. It’s not racial at all, but I do not use it around AAs (or just abbreviate it, ‘not my circus’) for just this reason. I used it *accidentally* around a black co-worker once and she thought I was talking about her. Let’s just say my apology was instant; I explained the source of it and promised not to use it again. And I didn’t.

    Some people need hard learnin’ to find the clue. Your old white lady sounds like one of them.

  191. 191.

    burnspbesq

    @lamh36:

    We who want freedom & limited government will have no other choice but to secede

    They can have the part of California north and east of Mt. Shasta to resettle in. It’s beautiful and empty and has no economy to speak of. There will be famine and hypothermia every winter.

  194. 194.

    Timurid

    So today at fencing two people started talking politics, and they went on to repeat every Trump/pro-Trump talking point from the last week… “both sides” “we’re losing our rights” “they’re destroying history” “the leftists are so violent!” After a bit of this I couldn’t stop myself from responding. I asked them how many people Antifa have killed in our city recently. “Uh… none?” Then I asked them how many people white supremacist terrorists have killed in our city recently. We live in Lafayette, LA. “But that guy was mentally ill!”

    My fencing club is pretty much 100% white southerners, aside from me and my Yankee co-worker (who got me started on fencing). They’re all nice people and they’re all my enemies (even if I can avoid thinking about it most days). They’ll be my buddies up until the day I’m taken away, then they’ll sigh and talk about how I was one of the good ones. This fucking place is full of pod people (90%+ white vote for Trump) who are literally cheering for the side that attacked their city two years ago and killed people. White people even. But what do I do? The only way to avoid hateful fucks is to never leave my home and my workplace (with all the other lefty academics).

    I am so pissed right now. Not just at this city full of racist fuck buckets but at myself, for not being good enough at my job to get out of this place.

    Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  195. 195.

    Gemina13

    @lamh36: I saw that. He was one of my mother’s favorite comedians. I posted a bit about this on my FB page that I’ll C & P here:

    Gregory was also the first radical comic I was introduced to, thanks to my mother. Mom loved his stuff, and read his autobiography, titled (bluntly), “Nigger.” She told me a joke that Gregory used to include in his routines, which still makes me laugh:

    “So I went into this little diner [in Mississippi, during the ’60s] and sat down. The waitress came over and said, ‘We don’t serve colored folk here.’ I said, ‘That’s all right, I don’t eat colored folk. Just bring me a whole fried chicken.’

    “As the waitress left, these three brothers – you know them, Ku, Klux, and Klan – came over to my booth, looked down at me, and said, ‘Boy, you just remember this. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re gonna do to you.’ And then they sat down. So the waitress comes back with my chicken. I put my napkin in my lap and pick up my knife and fork. And those three brothers say again, ‘You heard what we said, boy. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re gonna do to you.’ So I put down my knife and fork, picked up that chicken, and kissed it.”

    Gregory was raised by his mother; his father was mostly out of his life. She died when he was a young man, exhausted by overwork and bad health. The end of his autobiography, which comes shortly after a recounting of the Birmingham church building that killed four little girls, is a heartfelt cry out to her:

    “You didn’t die a slave for nothing, Momma. You brought us up. You and all those Negro mothers who gave their kids the strength to go on, to take that thimble to the well while the whites were taking buckets. Those of us who weren’t destroyed got stronger, got calluses on our souls. And now we’re ready to change a system, a system where a white man can destroy a black man with a single word. Nigger.

    “When we’re through, Momma, there won’t be any niggers any more.”

    RIP, Mr. Gregory.

  197. 197.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: Okay. Again tandoori mixed grill is going to be very similar to the kebabs and grilled lamb and chicken of Levantine food in texture and flavor. Part of that is the oven – the tandoor. The word is almost protolinguistic. These types of clay (earth) ovens, with similar names (tanur, tanurah, etc) exist from east Africa through the Middle East and Central Asia into SE Asia.

  198. 198.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Schlemazel:
    but . . . but . . . but . . . I watched Gunsmoke and The Rifleman and The Adventures of Wyatt Earp and that is not how it was at all! Heck the Cartwrights didn’t even carry guns most of the time

    but Barbara Stanwyck could shoot a hole in a quarter

  202. 202.

    Adam L Silverman

    @ArchTeryx: I have heard that before. As well as variants along the lines of “not my organ, not my monkey”. And the less problematic: “not my circus, not my elephants”.

  210. 210.

    Ruckus

    @Timurid:
    I live in blue CA and we have redneck white supremacists. And just a bit farther south Darrel Issa. But I repeat myself. Where I work we have an asshole who on Nov 9 was thanking everyone for their vote, that they elected a winner. Assholes are everywhere. Everyone has one, some just wear theirs upon their shoulders and put food into it. But what comes out is still shit.

  214. 214.

    Honus

    @Adam L Silverman: there’s two different trilogies, the Army of the Potomac trilogy (written in the early 1950s I think) which ends with the incomparable Stillness at Appomattox and the Centennial Trilogy, written of ourse in the early 1960s. I read them years ago and get them mixed up in my mind now, but one of my favorite parts is Cattons rendition of jubal early and the VI Corps facing off in DC.

  220. 220.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I know! I’m thinking if you’re the head of the Jewish state that was created after millions of people were slaughtered, there’s nothing that would be more important than standing up against Nazis. Unless you’re Netten-Yahoo, who cares more about power than anything else.

  221. 221.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Wait until he sues for breach of contract.

    I expect his publicity hound lawyers will do everything they can to avoid discovery. Bad enough Mueller is digging around the family connections and finances.

  222. 222.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Honus: Yep. I’ve got a special release of the Centennial History of the Civil War. It is a boxed set with five volumes in paperback. I don’t have it handy, it’s in storage with 99% of the rest of my stuff, but I think they either added two books from the earlier series or broke the three volumes into five for this set. Not sure where Dad got it. He may have bought it at the Gettysburg battlefield gift shop. So it may have been a special release for the Civil War battlefield parks. I know that’s where he bough Killer Angels.

  223. 223.

    Ruckus

    @Gemina13:
    There are a number of people who shaped who I am, especially as I was growing up. That a great percentage of them are black has been a wonderful experience in this life, something that no one can take away from me. That some of them I’ve never met but they wrote wonderful things about life like Dick Gregory did is as encouraging. Most of the white people just mouthed homilies about church, mom and apple pie. None of which meant anywhere near as much.

  224. 224.

    Ken

    @efgoldman:

    “Given the current environment surrounding Mar-a-Lago, we have made the decision to move our annual dinner dance,”

    The NOAA hurricane season forecast aside, I don’t think there’s been much bad publicity about Mar-a-Lago. So is this their polite way of saying “Trump is toxic”?

  227. 227.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: @WaterGirl: Israeli politics is not for the faint of heart. Nor is Israeli society free of some of the worst stereotypes and prejudices that a state and society founded largely by refugees fleeing persecution in Europe combined with those who failed to get out and survived the Holocaust could create.

    As my undergraduate advisor and polisci professor used to say: “when you treat a group of people despotically, once they get free and set up their own societies and states they tend to establish despotisms”.

  228. 228.

    WaterGirl

    @Timurid:

    They’ll be my buddies up until the day I’m taken away, then they’ll sigh and talk about how I was one of the good ones.

    That’s the third time in the past 2 days that I’ve seen that sort of reference to being one of the good ones. Oh, right, the second time was our own s.cat whose FRIEND actually said that to her. I’m pretty sure that if you didn’t actually smack someone for that attitude, you’re doing great.

  229. 229.

    Gemina13

    @Honus: I agree with you about Catton. I had a 7th-grade teacher hand me “This Hallowed Ground” and say, “You’re going to enjoy this.” I read about my grade level, but that book was a trial – still, it was worth it. It left me shell-shocked in a way nothing has until I saw Schindler’s List. My brother owns the book and Catton’s Centennial History, which is an excellent piece and just as emotionally and factually hard-hitting.

  230. 230.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Contempt of Commander in Chief? Defamation of presidential character? Alienation of presidential administration affection?

  231. 231.

    Ruckus

    @Ken:
    Have to agree with @sukabi: Yes. The Palm Beach whatever association will not have an overwhelming number of democrats I’d imagine, so this is double plus good. Also a double plus stab at the orange duffus because as you implied there really is no other reason to change locations. And he is very fucking toxic. And getting worse by the day.

  232. 232.

    mskitty

    Just FYI, y’all, “an armed society is a polite society” is originally from a science fiction book written by R.A. Heinlein, often considered a libertarian. FICTIONAL. Not a description of reality – except as noted above in feudal Japan, and probably in every other militarized hierarchical society. I bet Sparta was pretty polite.

  233. 233.

    WaterGirl

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m thinking more along the lines of “You don’t cancel Trump, he cancels you.” I hope the cumulative public humiliation causes him to dissolve in shame.

  234. 234.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gemina13: It took me three or four tries over the years and I can crank through a hundred pages an hour when I’m into what I’m reading. I finally got through the whole thing when I was 38-39. I was on temporary duty, and therefore traveling a lot, for almost 13 months straight when I got back from Iraq. This is before tablets, so I read it on the plane and during down time in the hotels I was staying at.

  235. 235.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    How sadly prophetic. I can’t stand what Israel has turned into. If I were speaking to my family, I’m sure we’d have some pretty vicious arguments over this.

  237. 237.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: It is what it is. It didn’t happen by accident. And there’s been a fair amount of enabling that was done by both Jewish Americans, non-Jewish Americans, and the US government.

  238. 238.

    NotMax

    @WatergIrl

    As Michael Landon quipped one time when Johnny Carson asked him what four men living together did on that ranch in Bonanza during the long, cold winters, “Thank God for Hop Sing!”

  239. 239.

    Lyrebird

    @lamh36:

    BLT said…yes that. Do you know how offensive that is?” OWLT said “oh, you are taking it the wrong way, it’s just a nickname, like I give my dogs!!!”

    Are you absolutely sure OWLT is not Sascha Baron-Cohen in drag doing some of his “how offensive can I be before people get that I’m just doing performance art” things? Positive? ‘Cause holy moly…

    Glad to hear supervisor stood up for BLT.

  240. 240.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: I laughed and then thought, should I be laughing at that?

    But one or another of the brothers, and even Pa, would have a lady friend come into their lives. Sadly, when that happened, you knew she would be dead before the end of the episode. Kind of like the red shirt guys in Star Trek.

  241. 241.

    Honus

    @WaterGirl: have gun, will travel reads the card of a man
    A knight without armor in savage land
    His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind
    A soldier of of fortune is the man called Paladin
    Paladin Paladin where do you roam?
    Paladin Paladin, far far from home

  242. 242.

    WaterGirl

    @Honus: Thanks for that. After seeing the lyrics I googled so I could listen to the song. Man, that was one slow-moving song!

  243. 243.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: Ever see the movie Tinmen?
    Sam: You know when I saw ‘Bonanza’ the other day, something occurred to me.
    Ernest Tilley: Eh?
    Sam: Ya got these four guys living on the Ponderosa and ya never hear them say anything about wanting to get laid.
    Ernest Tilley: Huh.
    Sam: I mean ya never hear Hoss say to Little Joe, “I had such a hard-on when I woke up this morning.”
    Ernest Tilley: No, no, no…
    Sam: They don’t talk about broads – nothing. Ya never hear Little Joe say, “Hey, Hoss, I went to Virginia City and I saw a girl with the greatest ass I’ve ever seen in my life.” They just walk around the Ponderosa: “Yes, Pa, where’s Little Joe?” Nothin’ about broads. I don’t think I’m being too picky. But, if at least once, they talked about getting horny. I don’t care if you live on the Ponderosa or right here in Baltimore, guys talk about getting laid. I’m beginning to think that show doesn’t have too much realism.

  245. 245.

    Mnemosyne

    @ArchTeryx:

    Yeah, if one’s immediate workplace response to That’s offensive isn’t OMG, I didn’t mean it that way, but I promise not to say it again, then one is an asshole.

  247. 247.

    Miss Bianca

    @lamh36: I still can’t freakin’ wrap my head around this story, btw. I can’t even find the words to describe my reactions.

  248. 248.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Cool. Since it seems that 150 years later we still haven’t entirely put the Civil War *or* Reconstruction behind us, it seems really relevant to revisit right now.

  249. 249.

    Honus

    @WaterGirl: And it’s so cool that the singer is named Johnny Western.

    He travels on to wherever he must
    A chess knight of silver is his badge of trust
    There are campfire legends that the plainsmen spin
    Of the man with gun…
    Of the man called paladin

  250. 250.

    JAFD

    First; Would like to mention Fletcher Pratt’s _A Short History of The Civil War_. This is the 1963 edition – a retitling and revision of his 1935 work, _Ordeal by Fire_. I won’t say it’s enlightened on racial equality, but The Guy Could Write.

    It’s available electronically on 14-day loan at
    https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryofci00prat

    IMHO, is a one-volume history to be matched with Catton & MacPherson’s. Possibly most interesting facet is the areas that the authors considered worth covering at the time they wrote, and what they thought “the lessons of history” were.

    If you’ve read it, or other of Mr. Pratt’s works, your thoughts are invited.

    Second; There’s a thread at The Miniatures Page – the online omnibus for Grown Ups Who Still Play With Toy Soldiers – “The Ten Books to read on the ACW” – you might find interesting, at
    http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=112741

  251. 251.

    David Evans

    @mskitty, the Heinlein book is Beyond This Horizon. It impressed me by being the first to make plausible that a couple could choose the best combination of their genes for their children. That’s a benign form of genetic engineering that could eliminate many hereditary diseases without (hopefully) too many religious objections. And it was written in 1942! Heinlein threw out good and bad ideas in all directions, and I didn’t take the “armed society” too seriously.

  253. 253.

    NobodySpecial

    @Adam L Silverman: Funny, when I mentioned Catton’s trilogy last year on here, I was told that it wasn’t even top tier. Wonder what the complainer thought of Foote.

  255. 255.

    Tenar Arha

    @lamh36: I got family in NYC & we chat about how NYC society works occasionally. SWTG I think Ivanka still hopes that she’ll be able to get her social standing back in NYC after everyone goes to jail around her. That standing was gone long ago, but Charlottesville will make her and her extended family toxic at all the levels where she was accepted before. Neither charity, celebrity, or notoriety will prevent the genteel shunning that she will experience for the rest of her life. We can only hope she’s going to be stuck with the unfashionable & gauche levels in NYC for the rest of her life, just like her father before her.

  256. 256.

    Tenar Arha

    @WaterGirl: My mother used to remind me that just because you survived multiple atrocities and attacks, didn’t make you virtuous, just made you tougher and perhaps even meaner.

    Later, I also realized that accepting the support of groups that could become dangerous to the diaspora is not new in Jewish history. To get support for Palestine, Brandeis accepted the support of every one of the Christian eschatological sects of his day. Still to this day, the most fervent gentile support for Israel is the support of people who look to the return of Jewish people as the fulfillment of end-times prophesies.

    ETA More than half of the time I think they agitate for more settlements simply to bring “the endtimes” closer.

  258. 258.

    Annie

    @Schlemazel:

    Agree with you about Foote. I’ve been reading history for years and he was the first author I ever read who explained military and battle tactics so that I could understand them. He also had a great deal of respect for Ulysses S. Grant

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