Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me file that under fuck it.

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

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

He really is that stupid.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

“woke” is the new caravan.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The lights are all blinking red.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Wisdom of the Old White Man

The Wisdom of the Old White Man

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This post is in: 

I’m helping out a family member today, so I happen to be killing some time in a coffee shop in Buffalo. There are two old men next to me pontificating on popular events. It is always interesting to hear assholes talk with their filters off.

On the Porter scandal: “Why are they getting so worked up about a guy who gave his wife a couple of slaps twenty years ago?”

Also, you may not know that there are communists all over the government. According to Laura Ingraham (“I like her – she’d be a good fuck”), a recent head of the CIA (didn’t catch the name) was a member of the Communist party years ago.

After exhausting current events and politics, now they’re swapping stories of their youth, focusing on who had a fight with whom.

These guys have always been with us – the sad fact is that one of them is now in charge. Open thread.

Reader Interactions

282Comments

  4. 4.

    Chris

    Listening to the wisdom of the random Older White Men you run into is definitely a good eyeroll-generator.

    I remember taking a Greyhound across Florida once and having one of them grumble at me about how much worse Greyhound had gotten. “Obamacare, I guess.”

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    On the Porter scandal: “Why are they getting so worked up about a guy who gave his wife a couple of slaps twenty years ago?”

    I don’t think he’d used these words even in his private thoughts, but I’ve figured since this started that this was Kelly’s attitude. Apparently Mo Brooks waved the story away with a dismissive reference to “all this soap opera stuff”

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    From Cole’s twitter feed, the “dude” is Mick Mulvaney ETA: I was guessing it was Photo-Op Ryan

    Rex Huppke @ RexHuppke
    Dude sits there with an ash cross on his forehead saying a military parade might cost as much as $30 million just days after laying out a budget that will send poor people boxes of canned beans. Not a real follower-of-Christ move, if you ask me.

    as a very lapsed Catholic and political media junkie, Ash Wednesday has become extremely annoying. I remember a couple of years ago, Lawrence O’Donnell and the “women’s issues” columnist from the WaPo– Melinda something?– sitting there with the biggest, blackest smears I’ve ever seen whinging about how Democrats were being so bigoted to Catholics by saying birth control was a health care issue. I think O’Donnell more or less apologized later.

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    I’m helping out a family member today, so I happen to be killing some time in a coffee shop in Buffalo. There are two old men next to me pontificating on popular events. It is always interesting to hear assholes talk with their filters off.

    Who says this is no country for old men?

    On the Porter scandal: “Why are they getting so worked up about a guy who gave his wife a couple of slaps twenty years ago?”

    Sexist and uninformed. What a combination.

  14. 14.

    Best Peasant

    Not at all surprising that conservative men use the same f*ck/won’t f*ck scale on conservative women that they use on liberal women.

  15. 15.

    takebakawashi

    @EBT:

    Now “prurient”, I looked that up; it means “having itching, morbid, or lewd and lascivious desires”. Now surely that describes all of us here tonight.

    — Tom Lehrer, Smut

  16. 16.

    The Moar You Know

    Ash Wednesday has become extremely annoying

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not raised in the church and so don’t get the tradition, but one of my local churches is offering an “Ash n’ Dash” drive through service.

    This seems not in the spirit or intent of the thing, but I could easily be wrong.

  17. 17.

    JMG

    I’d bet serious money neither of those guys were ever in a real fight in their lives. But I’d bet at least one of them was a spouse abuser.

  18. 18.

    bystander

    You have to admire Mike Mulvaney’s arithmetical perspicacity. He is able to estimate the cost of twitler’s parade between $10 and $30 million. I mean what’s a 200% difference among friends?

    Mr. Mulvaney’s prognostications about the financial “benefit” of the tax giveaway program should be treated accordingly.

  19. 19.

    jl

    Sounds like foucault swing voter mistermix sat next to Trump and Michael Cohen having a bite to eat in a diner. Huh, who woulda thunk? Small world, ain’t it?

    Edit: were they eating cheeseburgers?

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Rachel Maddow reports breaking news that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, responding to an FEC complaint, insists he paid $130,000 to adult performer Stormy Daniels from his own money, not Trump Org or Trump campaign money.

    Love the Twitter response:

    Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule

    Trump using his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to foot his hooker bill means Trump’s record of never paying for anything is still untarnished.

    ETA: Some are saying that even if the lawyer paid, there may still be legal problems involved with the payment.

  24. 24.

    jl

    @bystander: Mulvaney gives us a history lesson! He knows things about military parades!

    “We actually have (had) military parades in this country before,” he said in response to a question from Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Texas. “I think we had one as recently as the 1990s, or even more recently than that.”


    https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/14/politics/military-parade-donald-trump-mick-mulvaney/index.html

    Edit: the squalid little crook didn’t add the Trumpian ‘people don’t know that’ I don’t know whether Trump will view that as uppity deviationist noncomformaty by a flunky in not adding that tag, or maybe Trump has trademarked some of his routine BS patter. We are all learning our Trumplinology as we go along.

  25. 25.

    Lapassionara

    @rikyrah: Seriously, this is not what Cohen said.

    I know I am beating a dead horse, but he said he used his funds to “facilitate” a payment. My guess is that he used his funds to register the LLC that issued the check for $130,000. Depending on the state of registration, maybe he put up $250 for that registration. The question is where did the LLC get the money.

  28. 28.

    The Moar You Know

    According to Laura Ingraham (“I like her – she’d be a good fuck”)

    Classic. In real life she’d beat him senseless for having the temerity to think it, and leave him with his head wrapped in duct tape to slowly die.

  31. 31.

    Steeplejack

    @chrisanthemama:

    Dead Man is a great little movie! Beautiful black-and-white cinematography and an interesting “score” by Neil Young, which seems to consist mainly of him clanging guitars around in an echo chamber (in a good way). Trailer here.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    How old were these old guys you overheard?

    Also, the ash and dash thing would have caused the nuns to spontaneously combust. Funny, though not because they have lost the plot.

    OT, all 4 pups are quietly sleeping, but I am getting really antsy to move around and do something, even though I know bedlam will ensue.

  35. 35.

    bemused

    Two MN state legislators, Sen Carla Nelson and Rep Bud Nornes, introduced a bill to codify freedom of speech on campuses with higher emphasis on “free speech”. A passage of their bill reads, “although faculty are free in classroom to discuss subjects within areas of their competence, faculty shall be cautious in expressing personal views and shall be careful not to introduce controversial matters”. Not surprising this bill is being panned as unconstitutional.
    Rep Nornes said college campuses have gotten a little out of control. Nornes believes the need for this bill is based partly on his personal experience. “We’ve got grandkids that are in college and they come back with some really wild and crazy ideas.”

  37. 37.

    JustRuss

    @Lapassionara: Yep. I’ve found that whenever you find someone using weasel words like “facilitate”, it’s a safe bet there’s a whole lot of weaselin’ going on.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @The Moar You Know: I suspect she’d probably wink and flirt with them until they signed up for a lifetime subscription to her newsletter for $35/month. “And if you’re looking for gifts for you grandchildren….”

  39. 39.

    raven

    Riki Lindhome-Pretty in Buffalo

    All I try to tell me
    I wasn’t very pretty and
    They don’t give a prize to
    Girls who are witty so
    fuck you in the face
    You mean to get out of this place
    To the fly over states
    And remember what people look like
    In Buffalo the girls
    Don’t have to be underweight

  46. 46.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @azelie:

    My husband and I call these groups of pontificating old white men (often gathering in coffee shops) “Uncle Walters”

    Just don’t confuse them with Uncle Walter who goes waltzing with bears.

  47. 47.

    Amaranthine RBG

    How goddamned mentally defective do you have to be in 2018 to write disparagingly of a particular gender or race and think it’s acceptable, let alone accurate?

  49. 49.

    EBT

    @glory b: I am trans. Easy peasy answer ain’t it?

    Bonus information no one wanted to know, Part of that story (the non sex first part) is based on real events I did.

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    @bemused:

    Rep Nornes said college campuses have gotten a little out of control. Nornes believes the need for this bill is based partly on his personal experience. “We’ve got grandkids that are in college and they come back with some really wild and crazy ideas.”

    Glory be! We sent them kids to college and they came back educated. Don’t know how in the world that happened.

  54. 54.

    Dmas0n

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    How goddamned mentally defective do you have to be in 2018 to write disparagingly of a particular gender or race and think it’s acceptable, let alone accurate?

    bemused says:
    February 14, 2018 at 12:11 pm

    Old white men are basically obnoxious middle school boys.

    Amaranthine RBG I assume this is the kind of thing you meant. No?

  55. 55.

    NorthLeft12

    I am rapidly approaching old hood, and I am constantly checking myself [with my wife, kids and close friends] to make sure I don’t start sounding like an entitled white male asshole.
    I have asked them to make sure they say something to me if it appears that I am going off the rails.
    My mission, once I retire, will be to call out anyone stupid enough to sound off in public like those two douchecanoes.

  56. 56.

    Miss Bianca

    @Steeplejack: Dead Man is one of my favorites.

    Johnny Depp standing there with a gun in his hand saying, “My name is William Blake – perhaps you’ve heard of my poetry” (or words to that effect) is one of my favorite movie images ever.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    On the Porter scandal: “Why are they getting so worked up about a guy who gave his wife a couple of slaps twenty years ago?”

    I recall Hunter S Tompson in the 60s referring to any guy who hits a woman as a punk. BS wife beating is some old school white’s thing. It’s always been what the trash do.

  60. 60.

    patroclus

    This makes me very uncomfortable, but I actually agree with Amaranthine on this one. What if the title was the wisdom of old black men or the wisdom of gay guys and then the example used was extremely offensive?

    On Ash Wednesday, when exactly did it become common for Roman Catholics to do the smudge on the forehead thing? As a kid, I don’t remember it at all (although, granted, I lived in Protestant land). Then, about the late 70’s and early 80’s it seemed to take over the culture. I do remember eating pancakes on Maunday Thursday though.

  61. 61.

    Josie

    @zhena gogolia: I’ve noticed that the age discrimination is sort of limited, though, to a certain front pager and his followers. There are many of us, front pagers and commenters, who have lived long enough to have better sense than to make sweeping generalizations.

  62. 62.

    bemused

    @trollhattan:

    Oh, me too! I was referring to the cranky codger segment right wing old white guys. I’m married to an old white guy and he’s the opposite of them or I would have ditched him long ago.

  63. 63.

    Miss Bianca

    @patroclus: You know what – when old black men or gay guys have the collective social power to not only shape our culture but oppress and harrass anyone who they think threatens that culture – you know, that power that old white guys have, have had, and will, regrettably, continue to have for the foreseeable future – then maybe I’ll concede your point.

    Till then, I’ll just say, “your concerns, and those of known troll ARGB, have been noted.”

  64. 64.

    trollhattan

    @bemused:
    It would depress the hell out of me to work in a retirement home and observe, as it occurs, the filters of polite public discourse coming off and people saying whatever the hell comes into their minds. Ugh. And yeah, sometimes it’s no longer that person at all, but that portion not taken by dementia, stroke or the like. But sometimes it’s totally that person.

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    HOW WILL WE EVER FIND OUR WAY OUT OF THE POLITICAL WILDERNESS IF WE DON’T APPEASE THEIR ECONOMIC ANXIETY?!!?!1!

  68. 68.

    Major Major Major Major

    @patroclus:

    What if the title was the wisdom of old black men or the wisdom of gay guys and then the example used was extremely offensive?

    Well, there’s the academic “racism = prejudice + power” equation, so you’re allowed to express prejudice against privileged groups.

  70. 70.

    Cacti

    @patroclus:

    This makes me very uncomfortable, but I actually agree with Amaranthine on this one. What if the title was the wisdom of old black men or the wisdom of gay guys and then the example used was extremely offensive?

    I’d say that an apples to apples comparison never works between the culturally dominant group and oppressed minority ones.

  71. 71.

    different-church-lady

    @raven:

    Because, like, young people are sooo totally fucking brilliant and say the smartest stuff. . .

    …when their mouths aren’t full of laundry detergent pods.

  72. 72.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Dmas0n:

    I would start with the title of the thread

    Yes, of course I understand that people are talking about a nasty subset of white guys but so what?

    There are horrible, vile, violent black men who deal drugs. But you’d never say “another black thug dealing drugs”

    And, no, I am not comparing slurs against white dudes with the 500 years of oppression blacks have faced on this shitty continent, but for fucks sake, let’s do better people.

  73. 73.

    dnfree

    @Brachiator: No More Mister points out (a couple of sources) that the lawyer doesn’t actually SAY he paid the $130,000. He says he used some of his money to FACILITATE the payment. Reporters are terrible at parsing nuance, and then the story just gets passed around. In other words, reporters many reporters don’t comprehend complexity, and they can be lazy in arriving at a common version of a story rather than looking deeper.

    https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-trumper-extends-life-of-fading.html

    Yesterday Cohen made this statement admitting the bulk of the story. “In a private transaction in 2016,” Cohen said, “I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to [Daniels]. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with [Daniels], and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”

    … Does Cohen actually say he paid the $130,000 out of his own pocket? … All Cohen says is that he used his personal funds to “facilitate a payment of $130,000.”

    … if it took Cohen a few hundred dollars to set up an entity to pay Daniels, and to wire someone else’s $130,000 to her, then he would have been using his own personal funds to faciltate that payment.

  77. 77.

    Cacti

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I love how the boomers making fun of the Tide Pods thing (which is stupid!) are from the generation famous for eating LSD like candy.

    Munching LSD was far less destructive than the Boomers starting the AIDS epidemic.

  78. 78.

    opiejeanne

    @Major Major Major Major: I see those guys ogling me at the coffee shop inside the grocery store in Blue Jay, CA. I’m not much to look at but I’m younger than the old women who sometimes sit with them and it makes me sad that they think they’re in my league.

  79. 79.

    Jack the Second

    @jl: We had some good parades after the Civil War; I wouldn’t mind a good parade if the troops have just finished burning the estates of rich white traitors. I’m sure we can find a few.

  80. 80.

    Gelfling 545

    Sigh. Welcome to Buffalo. It’s not the city so much as the surrounding areas but I chuckle bitterly when I hear abput liberal NY State.

  81. 81.

    Dmas0n

    @Cacti: If someone believes in judging someone by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin the problem with what you said is apparent. It’s your prerogative if you want to water the tree of racial hate but please bear in mind that it can grow out of control overnight.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    @dnfree:

    No More Mister points out (a couple of sources) that the lawyer doesn’t actually SAY he paid the $130,000. He says he used some of his money to FACILITATE the payment. Reporters are terrible at parsing nuance, and then the story just gets passed around. In other words, reporters many reporters don’t comprehend complexity, and they can be lazy in arriving at a common version of a story rather than looking deeper.

    Yep. And this is one of the reasons why I have not assumed that anyone did anything illegal. Yet. I am amused that once again, Trump got something without paying in any way.

    And yeah. Some reporters get it wrong. This is why there is follow-up. That is part of good journalism.

  85. 85.

    Nicole

    On the Porter scandal: “Why are they getting so worked up about a guy who gave his wife a couple of slaps twenty years ago?”

    Porter is 40 years old and got married in 2003. It’s not enough that these old guys are misogynists; they’re also really bad at math.

  87. 87.

    BLG

    Guys like that have even been in charge before. What’s missing is the notion of ‘polite society’. Once upon a time, there was the collective understanding that those thoughts and actions had no place in polite society. What Twittler has done is tear down that notion.

    Of course, that being said, maybe it’s time that some sun shine on that sort of thinking. Show it for what it is. The real truth (or at least another part of the real truth) is that not only have people thought like that, they’ve acted like that – just behind closed doors. I have to wonder if the real problem is that now we have to confront the reality of the actions, not the thoughts.

    Oh well – back to work now!

  92. 92.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan: Reminds me of an insight revealed in one of my favorite books – Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night:

    “I believe, when you get even the primmest people under an anaesthetic, they are liable to bring the strangest vocabulary out of the subconscious – in fact, the primmer, the coarser.”

  94. 94.

    different-church-lady

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    There are horrible, vile, violent black men who deal drugs. But you’d never say “another black thug dealing drugs”

    PAYBACK IS A BITCH, AIN’T IT?

  98. 98.

    Gelfling 545

    @patroclus: All my 6 1/2 decades. Some Episcopal churches do it as well. It’s always been a big Catholic deal. Some folks go in the evening so as not to be ostentatiously sporting the big, black cross all day.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @Cacti:

    I’m saying that generation “free love” spreading the plague of the late 20th century was a lot stupider than millennials munching laundry detergent packets.

    The AIDS Generation, if you want to call it that, were not Boomers.

    It’s also wrongheaded to try to blame any particular generation for most ailments. Not a cause and effect thing.

  102. 102.

    trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:

    “the primmer, the coarser.”

    Nice!
    “Who just called you a bitchass punk motherfvcker?”
    “Miss Manners.”
    “Oh, her again.”

    My MIL passed in bed at her care home two years back, and while I was sitting vigil while my wife gatered herself to begin the arrangements a woman parked herself outside the door and screamed, “Where are my DRUGS? I need my DRUGS!. Somebody stole my DRUGS! Give me my DRUGS!”

    This went on for what seemed like a long time.

  104. 104.

    Cacti

    @Dmas0n:

    If someone believes in judging someone by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin the problem with what you said is apparent. It’s your prerogative if you want to water the tree of racial hate but please bear in mind that it can grow out of control overnight

    Seriously? You’re using the corpse of Martin Luther King as a shield for bigoted white dudes?

    Did you get lost on your way to Fox News?

  105. 105.

    jl

    @Jack the Second: ” I wouldn’t mind a good parade if the troops have just finished burning the estates of rich white traitors. ”

    Popular belief puts France’s Bastille Day as a variation on that theme. I read about the history of Bastille Day celebrations on the Wiki, and if that entry is accurate, the French themselves have concerns about what a military parade is for, and what it celebrates. Wiki said that officially, the Bastille Day celebrations commemorate the first annual commemoration of the actual Bastille Day, which also marked an initial (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to settle the French Revolution peacefully.

    Celebrating mob violence, even if in a good cause, was considered unseemly. But hey, Trump say the beta loser Macron get a big military parade with tanks and howitzers and stuff, so he wants one too. i guess will be considered treasonous soon not to give Trump the parade that he wants.

  106. 106.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    There are horrible, vile, violent black men who deal drugs. But you’d never say “another black thug dealing drugs”

    And, no, I am not comparing slurs against white dudes with the 500 years of oppression blacks have faced on this shitty continent, but for fucks sake, let’s do better people.

    Uh, yeah, you are. You just did. Right there.

  108. 108.

    Barbara

    @dnfree:

    “I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to [Daniels]. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with [Daniels], and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”

    That could mean as little as “I used my own funds to purchase a first class stamp to send the check in the mail.” The word “facilitate” is rarely chosen without deliberation.

  111. 111.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dmas0n: Racial hate against white men?? OMG, the horror, the HORROR. It’s all coming back to me – the lynchings, the shootings, the slurs hurled against white men just because they were white men!! I thought we were past all that in our post-racial society, but I see now that pointing and laughing at white men is COMING BACK into vogue and watering the tree of racial hate, just when white men are at their most powerless!

    What a maroon. And no, I don’t mean an escaped Caribbean slave.

  112. 112.

    Immanentize

    @<a href="#comment-67556Cacti:

    saying that generation “free love” spreading the plague of the late 20th century was a lot stupider than millennials munching laundry detergent packets.

    That is the craziest take on the AIDS crisis I ever heard. Well, except that Jesus himself — personally — spread AIDS to rid the world of sinners (Florida preacher in Jupiter)

  113. 113.

    Citizen Alan

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    I’m betting at this point that you saw the title of the post, assumed the post was complaining about Wilmer, immediately got your panties in a bunch because you thought someone was sliming your god king, and then when you realized it wasn’t about him, you decided to stir some shit up anyway because you had already been triggered.

  114. 114.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Like those rich Jews, right?

    Think about what you’re saying.

    So saying mean things about WASPs like Donald Trump is the new anti-Semitism?

    Hint: Jews don’t actually have more power than other groups. It’s part of the anti-Semitic myth to claim that they do.

  115. 115.

    Immanentize

    @Barbara: The weird part is that the last part suggests he did make the payment because he was never “reimbursed.”. Of course, he is a slimy slippery bastard and those two sentences might be completely unrelated. “How clever, me” Cohen thinks.

  117. 117.

    Dmas0n

    @Cacti:
    @Miss Bianca:
    My point is that you either draw a line at lumping everyone together by racial categories or you don’t. History is full of ugly examples of people dividing society up along racial lines, it’s a dangerous practice wherever it appears. There is no positive outcome from that behavior and I’m kind of surprised to see people promoting such bigoted ideas openly and freely in the 21’st century. Like I said, it’s your business but damn it’s nasty to look at.

  118. 118.

    beef

    When I see old farts talking like that, I’m reminded of the links between lead poisoning and crime. It seems to me that most people in that generation who got a little lead poisoning didn’t end up in prison. More likely, they ended up Rush Limbaugh listeners. Probably a poli-sci or policy PhD thesis in that.

  119. 119.

    different-church-lady

    @Miss Bianca: So horrible is the oppression against old white men that those two old white men suffered from Mistermix’s unspeakable act of… leaving them alone and then lightly mocking them anonymously on the internet.

  120. 120.

    Cacti

    @Immanentize:

    That is the craziest take on the AIDS crisis I ever heard. Well, except that Jesus himself — personally — spread AIDS to rid the world of sinners (Florida preacher in Jupiter)

    Weird how Boomers like to pat themselves on the back for a civil rights movement that happened when they were school children, but absolve themselves from the epidemic spread of an STD that happened when they were sexually active yuppies.

  122. 122.

    Immanentize

    @Mnemosyne:
    Someone said something like this above, but equating or even stereotyping dominent culture is not the same as stereotyping or appropriating minority or outsider culture. Majority culture cannot be appropriated because it just IS the norm.

  123. 123.

    Cacti

    @Dmas0n:

    My point is that you either draw a line at lumping everyone together by racial categories or you don’t. History is full of ugly examples of people dividing society up along racial lines, it’s a dangerous practice wherever it appears. There is no positive outcome from that behavior and I’m kind of surprised to see people promoting such bigoted ideas openly and freely in the 21’st century. Like I said, it’s your business but damn it’s nasty to look at.

    I have a dream…

    That someday white men will stop pretending “reverse racism” is actually a thing.

  127. 127.

    Cacti

    @Major Major Major Major:

    weird how you’re absolving the Greatest Generation leaders of the nation for their racist, homophobic inaction combatting said crisis.

    Not at all. Reagan was a monster…

    Who a majority of Boomers helped put into office.

  128. 128.

    Dmas0n

    @Cacti: Who said anything about reverse racism? Using the supposed words of two unnamed individual bad actors to smear an entire racial and sexual group is bigotry, plain and simple. Check your dictionary.

    ETA: If you’re so entrenched in some bizarre ideology that you can’t see how disgusting that kind of behavior is on it’s face I honestly feel for you.

  129. 129.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan:

    “Who just called you a bitchass punk motherfvcker?”
    “Miss Manners.”
    “Oh, her again.”

    LOL! Oh, well-played, indeed!

    Lord, that story about your MIL is pure horror comedy gold. Maybe because I realize, I’m gonna BE that woman in the nursing home. “Where’s my JOINT, dammit? Where’s my JOINT?!”

  130. 130.

    Immanentize

    @Cacti: Wow. Yuppies. Boomers. Free Love. Are you an Old Person AI? I was at one of the centers of the AIDS crisis in the mid to late 80’s and I don’t remember AIDS spreading much in the yuppie free love Boomer community other communities were devastated — gay men, poor people, drug users, innocent women with cheating husband’s/boyfriend’s. And the Yuppie Boomer Free Love community vilified, criminalizad and incarcerated those others. Sending many to their needless painful deaths.
    Shit.

  131. 131.

    dnfree

    @Cacti: Age, race, and gender are for most people things we can’t help and can’t change. So regardless of whether it’s “old white guys” or “young black women” or whatever combination you can concoct, the liberal position would be to treat them as individuals. Isn’t it the right wing that deals in stereotypes?

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    @Cacti:

    The AIDS Generation, if you want to call it that, were not Boomers.

    What color is the sky in your world?

    My world is fine. Yours appears to be a bit skewed here.

  133. 133.

    Miss Bianca

    @different-church-lady:

    So horrible is the oppression against old white men that those two old white men suffered from Mistermix’s unspeakable act of… leaving them alone and then lightly mocking them anonymously on the internet.

    You just sent me into spasms. Behold me prostrate upon my fainting couch.

    ETA: FYWP, or maybe just my fumble fingers, wanted to render “prostrate” as “prostate”. Ponder *that* one for a moment.

  135. 135.

    guachi

    @Cacti:

    I have a dream…

    That someday white men will stop pretending “reverse racism” is actually a thing.

    I’ve lived in Augusta, Georgia long enough to know that it’s a thing. It’s only happened a few times and only when others around me didn’t realize I was there (I’m a white guy). I’ve had the opposite happen rarely where white people will assume I agree with their politics because I’m white. It doesn’t happen very much, though, thankfully.

  138. 138.

    Dmas0n

    @dnfree:

    Isn’t it the right wing that deals in stereotypes?

    I thought so for a long time too but it turns out that these types exist at both extremes. Progressive bigots exist. Who knew?

  140. 140.

    The Moar You Know

    Seriously? You’re using the corpse of Martin Luther King as a shield for bigoted white dudes?

    Did you get lost on your way to Fox News?

    @Cacti: Posting from Fox’s Russian HQ it seems.

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Major Major Major Major: My father-in-law and his brothers used to play a game where they’d all lie down on the ground, one of them would shoot an arrow straight up into the air with a bow, and whoever the arrow landed closest to would win.

    I think they also burned down a shed once.

    People of a certain age reminiscing about such things tend to show marked survivorship bias when opining on the safety of such behavior.

  142. 142.

    dnfree

    @Brachiator: I studied journalism back in the 1960s, when journalists thought it was part of their job to question authority. When I saw David Farenthold digging into Trump’s charitable giving–that was old-school journalism. I think there are too many journalists now who don’t really want to do the hard part of the job–they aspire to become columnists someday.

    A local example–our sheriff said he needed 14 new squad cars. He brought two around and parked them in front of the courthouse, demonstrating that they had some rust. All our local reporters dutifully took photos of the rust and published them along with the story. In the old days, a reporter would have wanted to see the other 12 squad cars.

  143. 143.

    Cacti

    @guachi:

    I’ve lived in Augusta, Georgia long enough to know that it’s a thing.

    Anti-white racism does not exist in the United States of America.

  144. 144.

    trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:
    Sounds like a few folks would do well to go through the Trump campaign rally photo archives. Do a statistical analysis of the crowd demographics. Then get back to us.

    “But, her emails and also Hillary never went to Wisconsin!” seems so quaint.

  145. 145.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dmas0n: Your concerns lest white men suddenly, as a result of anonymous mockery and STEREOTYPING!!11, are liable to suffer dreadfully – quite possibly as dreadfully as they’ve made others suffer for millenia – have been noted.

  146. 146.

    Immanentize

    @beef:

    . It seems to me that most people in that generation who got a little lead poisoning didn’t end up in prison.

    I show my students a graph of lead in the environment by year matched with a graph of violent crimes committed (-18 years) and it’s almost a perfect match.
    But I also point out, like you say, that most of the people in that cohort did not go to prison. And many of them are in Congress today.

  148. 148.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I love how the boomers making fun of all youngsters for the Tide Pods thing (which is stupid!) are from the generation famous for eating LSD like candy.

    You’re kidding, right? I mean, where to start…

    Do you have the faintest actual idea what taking LSD is like? Do you know there is no toxic level dosage of LSD, meaning there is no possibility of overdose or even physical damage from taking it? “The generation famous for eating LSD like candy.” You mean, like, all of us, or most of us, or maybe just a lot of us? Any idea how small a percentage of boomers actually even tried LSD one time, let alone ate it “like candy”? This is “Reefer Madness” level of dumbfuckery, and very far off the rails from your normally well-thought-out commentary here.

    And yeah, the Tide Pods thing is pretty stupid, but I’m not going to engage in attacking an entire generation (I don’t know, is it “millenials”?) over it because: 1) only a vanishingly-small number of people can actually have truly done this, and 2) bashing any arbitrarily-drawn “generation” about anything is one of the most brainless parlor games dumbshits indulge in (hey look, there’s Cacti!).

  149. 149.

    Adria McDowell

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s funny because the one of the readings today was to not showboat your “righteousness” like the hypocrites.

    Just wipe it off when you get out of the church, dummies! You don’t have to have it on all day!

  150. 150.

    Elmo

    @takebakawashi: Dear God. I saw that reference, and initially thought, “Hm. I know all of Tom Lehrer’s oeuvre, and I don’t remember a song called – wait.” And then it was like a door opened in my mind, and I remembered and sang (quietly, to myself, because I’m at work) the entire song.

    When correctly viewed, everything is lewd
    I could tell you things about Peter Pan, or the Wizard of Oz – there’s a dirty old man!

    Thanks for the trip!

  152. 152.

    guachi

    @Cacti:

    Anti-white racism does not exist in the United States of America.

    Liar. Unless you define racism to be something only white people in America can be guilty of. But that’s a stupid definition.

  153. 153.

    J R in WV

    I will give ARBG one tiny credit. She can piss me off quicker, in fewer words, than any trollop ever before.

  154. 154.

    Dmas0n

    @guachi: This is the problem with their mentality. They DO think that only whites can be racist, and use that as cover for all kinds of vile behavior. In ultra progressive bizarro world racism is desirable as long as it’s solely aimed at whites. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!?!?!

  155. 155.

    Cacti

    @guachi:

    Liar. Unless you define racism to be something only white people in America can be guilty of. But that’s a stupid definition.

    There is no societal, economic, educational, or cultural disadvantage in the daily lives of white Americans that can be attributed to hostility from, or actual power wielded by any minority group in this country.

    Anti-white racism does not exist in the United States of America. It’s a unicorn of the right wing.

  156. 156.

    Matt McIrvin

    @different-church-lady: My impression is that, for the most part, people aren’t eating Tide Pods, and the vanishingly few who do are mostly trying to harm or kill themselves.

    What more people are doing is biting into Tide Pods on video and then spitting out the detergent, to gross other people out. The motivations are those of every carny geek since time immemorial. They know they’re not supposed to eat Tide Pods–that’s the point.

    Of course, this is itself dangerous, inadvisable behavior, because you could accidentally swallow some of it and sometimes that happens, but it’s not what it’s being portrayed as. I think most of the warnings about it are missing the point in such a way that they’re fueling the phenomenon.

  157. 157.

    trollhattan

    @Cacti: Welllll, I can’t agree it doesn’t exist but it’s not a driving political or socioeconomic force, either today or historically in the US. And despite the wailing amongst the Fox set, it was not a guiding factor in how 44 governed, to a fault.

  158. 158.

    Immanentize

    @Major Major Major Major: Almost all of my clients, colleagues and friends who died of AIDS were very late boomers (by your definition — while others say Generation X started in 61) or younger. Of course I knew some older gay men and and two older clients (IV cocaine addicts) who died from AIDS, but they were rare compared to all the young lost lives.

  159. 159.

    Brachiator

    @dnfree:

    I studied journalism back in the 1960s, when journalists thought it was part of their job to question authority.

    That was a big part of it. But you also had to know what was news and write about it accurately. Simply questioning authority doesn’t mean that you are able to communicate anything important about authority.

    When I saw David Farenthold digging into Trump’s charitable giving–that was old-school journalism.

    Great example.

    I think there are too many journalists now who don’t really want to do the hard part of the job–they aspire to become columnists someday.

    The weird thing is that journalism is being overtaken by the entertainment industry. Newspapers and news magazines are dying, and most people are OK with this. What’s left is reality TV and round-the-clock Kardashian coverage.

  160. 160.

    opiejeanne

    @Major Major Major Major: Haha! You made me laugh.

    The coffee shop is right by the exit and I was adjusting the snow-grip thingies on my boots before heading out to the car; that was the only place I could sit down, They didn’t notice my husband waiting nearby; he looked a little younger than I did at the time. It was a sort of wake-up call that I wasn’t 30 any more.

    I have decided I am not interested in another husband after this one is gone, if I outlive him. I think I am not a nice person to live with, and I feel too old to get naked with anyone else There are people I admire who seem to be nice to their spouses all the time and I don’t know how they do it.

  162. 162.

    Cacti

    @trollhattan:

    Welllll, I can’t agree it doesn’t exist but it’s not a driving political or socioeconomic force, either today or historically in the US

    But you just described why it doesn’t exist.

  164. 164.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dmas0n: Your assertions are too ridiculous even to pretend to argue with.

    @Cacti:

    There is no societal, economic, educational, or cultural disadvantage in the daily lives of white Americans that can be attributed to hostility from, or actual power wielded by any minority group in this country.

    Because this. So much this. White boys/men who want to talk about “reverse racism” make me bored to tears.

    ETA: Scratch one who’s blustering about it and find a guy who’s reluctantly aware of his own sex/skin color privilege, but feels like *he* hasn’t gotten anything out of it, and he won’t be *getting* anything out of it now because of all those damn uppity other groups who are not only after his privileged rank in society but have the termity to MAKE FUN of him while they’re doing it.

  166. 166.

    Immanentize

    @Matt McIrvin: This. As my sixteen y.o. son said, to me when I asked about it, “Dad, nobody is stupid enough to eat Tide.”. Huge eyeroll.

    They are having a big laugh on us every day. The kids are alright.

  167. 167.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: oh, where to begin. Yes, I know a lot about LSD, so we can just gloss over that whole paragraph. I was saying that it’s rich to have members of the generation smeared as being a bunch of acid freaks, smearing a different generation as a bunch of detergent eating morons. Same point you made. Exact same point.

  168. 168.

    different-church-lady

    WHEN THOSE TWO OLD WHITE GUYS GET GUNNED DOWN IN THE STREET BY TRIGGER-HAPPY COPS PLEASE LET ME KNOW SO THAT I CAN FEEL LIKE THERE’S SOME KIND OF VALIDITY TO THIS GODDAMNED MORONIC “DEBATE”.

  169. 169.

    Mnemosyne

    @guachi:

    Augusta, Georgia? The place with the famous golf club that banned Black members until 1991 and still doesn’t allow women to join? That Augusta, Georgia?

    Gosh, I can’t imagine why Black people in Augusta might hate and resent White people. A total mystery, that is.

  171. 171.

    M31

    @Immanentize:

    I always was amused by the evangelicals who claimed AIDS was a message from God — ’cause if it was the message was “be a lesbian”

    (P.S. actually not amused, more like ‘fuck you you fucking fuckers’)

  172. 172.

    Cacti

    @trollhattan:

    Do you understand what a racist is?

    I do. Do you?

    You seem to be conflating it with prejudice. They’re not the same thing.

    Racism is prejudice coupled with the power to enforce it against the disfavored racial group.

  173. 173.

    Dmas0n

    @Miss Bianca: Which assertion? The only assertion I’ve made that wasn’t evidenced within this very thread is that racism is dangerous. Is that assertion too ridiculous to pretend to argue with? You can feel free to refute anything I’ve said with facts but calling my points ridiculous doesn’t make it so. Point out WHY it’s ridiculous if you can, I’m betting you can’t.

  174. 174.

    different-church-lady

    @Cacti: I want there to someday be yet another category for “Strange thoughts I wish I wasn’t having.”

  177. 177.

    Mnemosyne

    @Dmas0n:

    The only assertion I’ve made that wasn’t evidenced within this very thread is that racism is dangerous.

    No, you asserted that anti-white bigotry or prejudice is the same thing as racism.

    That’s what people are disputing, and you still haven’t presented any actual evidence, just your hurt fee-fees.

  178. 178.

    Yutsano

    @Mnemosyne: And it’s still not racism. You might get mistreated in the micro when you’re among those not of your own race, but that’s prejudice. Unless there is evidence every single business in Augusta is minority owned, all the institutions, police, justice, etc. are controlled by minorities then the argument falls flat.

    You can feel as if you’re being prejudiced against, that can happen. But unless there is a systemic structure behind that enforcing the prejudice, it’s not racism.

  180. 180.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    @EBT: Hey, howzat work? I write awesome smut for my own sick amusement, but have no idea where or how to put it out in the world (preferably in a format that won’t have the villagers coming with torches and pitchforks to my day-job.) And yes, I realize that it’s not your job to help me find another, but I’m excited to meet a fellow foul-minded wordsmith.

  181. 181.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Immanentize: i was surprised to see that ‘64 is a popular cutoff year for boomers when I googled it. For me, two defining features of gen x are AIDS and having strong feelings about Kurt Cobain’s death.

    @opiejeanne:

    There are people I admire who seem to be nice to their spouses all the time and I don’t know how they do it.

    Well by definition you’re not seeing them when it’s just the two of them…

  184. 184.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yutsano:

    You can feel as if you’re being prejudiced against, that can happen. But unless there is a systemic structure behind that enforcing the prejudice, it’s not racism.

    This. Bigotry =/= racism. Prejudice =/= racism. A system that exists to prop up one group at the expense of other groups is racism.

  187. 187.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dmas0n: “The racism against white men exhibited in this thread is dangerous, I tell you!”

    Yeah, right. There’s “ridiculous” for you.

    How many of us here are going to go out and kill whitey as the result of the “racism” we’re exhibiting here? Anyone? Bueller? Oh, definitely not Bueller.

    How about even saying a mean word IRL to assholes like these two old white men in mistermix’s anecdote? Anyone? In response to some racist, sexist shit some old white men feel privileged to blather at the top of their lungs in public places? Anyone planning to practice that kind of racial oppression? oh, maybe a few of you? Right on.

  189. 189.

    Bostondreams

    Well, this will get fun. Daniels’ manager says the NDA is now likely invalid because the lawyer said he paid her.

    Manager for Stormy Daniels told AP that Daniels believes Trump’s lawyer invalidated a non-disclosure agreement by publicly discussing the payment, so Daniels can now talk about alleged sexual encounter with Trump https://t.co/W96OIj3yVa— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) February 14, 2018

  190. 190.

    Immanentize

    @LAO: Hi LAO!

    I loved this:

    The messages also reveal a running theme of sexism and misogyny, contain hints of anti-Semitism, and underline Assange’s well-documented obsession with his public image.

    Of course they did.

  191. 191.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    For me, two defining features of gen x are AIDS and having strong feelings about Kurt Cobain’s death.

    Not many of us Gen Xers contracted AIDS since most of us were under 18 when the crisis first started. It was mostly late Boomers.

    For reference, C Everett Koop did his famous pamphlet mailing when I was a senior in high school.

  192. 192.

    trollhattan

    @Cacti:

    I do. Do you?
    You seem to be conflating it with prejudice. They’re not the same thing.
    Racism is prejudice coupled with the power to enforce it against the disfavored racial group.

    Incorrect interpretation. Racism is racial prejudice (prejudgement). A racial system creates a disfavored group based on their (perceived) race. Nazis scooped up Catholics, gays and all sorts of people to enslave and exterminate who didn’t happen to be Jews. Is there a gay race?

  195. 195.

    Rasputin's Evil Twin

    @Jack the Second: You’re right, those were good times. And by that I mean the parades and burning down the estates of traitors. Wouldn’t mind being involved in both again, for nostalgia’s sake.

  196. 196.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Apparently, racism against whites now includes thinking, Christ, what an asshole, to yourself while the Trump voters at the other table blather on.

  197. 197.

    Miss Bianca

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m borderline on Kurt Cobain. Was shocked by his death but not devastated by it, because I hadn’t really even stumbled on Nirvana yet. I was born in ’63. Thinking this must make me a late-gen Boomer.

  199. 199.

    Mnemosyne

    @trollhattan:

    Nazis scooped up Catholics, gays and all sorts of people to enslave and exterminate who didn’t happen to be Jews. Is there a gay race?

    I understand the temptation to argue with this specific asshole, but you may not want to go down this particular path.

    Just sayin’.

  201. 201.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Miss Bianca:

    How many of us here are going to go out and kill whitey as the result of the “racism” we’re exhibiting here? Anyone? Bueller? Oh, definitely not Bueller.

    Yeah we wuddn’t gonna kill them boys, we was just gonna swing ’em from a tree for a while. Weren’t nobody kilt. What’s the harm?

    ///// Do I really need to explain this to someone old enough to feed themselves without a sippy cup?

  202. 202.

    Dmas0n

    @Mnemosyne: Ok fair enough, I can imagine how my simply referencing the dictionary instead of actually copy/pasting it for you might seem like me failing to provide evidence.

    rac·ism
    ˈrāˌsizəm/
    noun

    prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.
    “a program to combat racism”
    synonyms: racial discrimination, racialism, racial prejudice, xenophobia, chauvinism, bigotry, casteism
    “Aborigines are the main victims of racism in Australia”
    the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
    noun: racism
    “theories of racism”

    Evidence presented. please follow up with counter facts.

  204. 204.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Cacti:

    And ten’s of millions of Boomers voted against Saint Ronnie. I’m one of those horrid Gen Xers, myself. I just wish we could all paint with slightly less wide brushes.

  207. 207.

    Timurid

    @Yutsano:

    The distinction I’d make here is between racism and institutional racism.
    Anybody can be racist and can act on those beliefs to the limit of their abilities. But in this country, absent a few edge cases, only white people can inflict and/or benefit from institutional racism that mobilizes not just individuals but organizations and complex systems. Racism has famously been described as “the ability to affect outcomes.” Anybody who can pull a trigger or swing a bat can affect outcomes, but people who can control or influence something like a church, a police department or a corporation have, by orders of magnitude, more power to do harm. And they can usually do it without risking their property, freedom or lives.

  209. 209.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Stormy Daniels lawyer says because of Cohn’s admission she is released from her NDA and can now spill the beans on her affair with Trump. Way to go Cohn! ROTFLMAO

  210. 210.

    different-church-lady

    @Timurid:

    The distinction I’d make here is between racism and institutional racism.

    I was going to say pretty much the same thing but with the term “systemic racism.” But then I decided to just back off the fray a bit instead.

  211. 211.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    The Dortmunder novels of Donald Westlake feature a bunch of regulars who hang out in the bar where Dortmunder and his criminal buddies do their planning. The conversation of the regulars is completely self-assured and completely idiotic.

    That’s who these old guys remind me of.

    So far I’ve limited my own reaction to hearing this kind of pontificating to eyerolling, and I haven’t actually started screaming at any strangers. However, one of these conversations did actually cause me to leave a restaurant because I couldn’t take it any more. (I finished my meal, but quicker than I’d intended)

  213. 213.

    J R in WV

    @dnfree:

    Another one… never seen the nym before, but there it is. and Dmas0n too, brand new hateful person trying to spread hate in a friendly community. No good, kids, take your $0.50 Putin paid you and go home.

  215. 215.

    Immanentize

    @LAO: Yes. I have been wondering if they would go into hurry up mode because everything seems to be falling off the tracks. I really expected them to go slow and open it all up after the mid terms

  216. 216.

    Dmas0n

    @Miss Bianca: Unsurprisingly, you missed my point entirely. I’m not worried for the future of white men. If you’re saying that racial politics is not dangerous that’s fine, I can cite some examples of it being dangerous (post revolution soviet union, south Africa, Israel/Palestine) and I would ask you to cite some example of it being successful. That’s all.

  217. 217.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    Yeah we wuddn’t gonna kill them boys, we was just gonna swing ’em from a tree for a while. Weren’t nobody kilt. What’s the harm?

    Yes, I remember seeing all of those photos of howling mobs of Black people surrounding the corpse of the White man they had just murdered. That happens, like, every day, right?

    Hint: your fear of being treated the same way Black people have historically been treated in this country is itself a racist fear.

  219. 219.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I was saying that…

    OK, I’ll take you at your word on your explanation of what you were saying, no reason not to (as I said, I’m familiar with your commentary here). Wasn’t apparent to me (thus, my response), maybe I need to adjust my snark-o-meter or something. I just find the generational-bashing thing (in either direction) tediously-stupid, annoying, and unhelpful among people who are supposed to be on the same general side (I expect such wilfully-ignorant assholishness from rightwingers).

  220. 220.

    different-church-lady

    Apparently we’ve been caught being cute about lynching.

    I don’t recall anyone suggesting lynching in the first place, nor being cute about it, but hey, we’ve been caught and I guess that’s that.

  222. 222.

    Dmas0n

    @Mnemosyne: I mean, it IS how we determine what words mean. This is supposedly a disagreement over semantics. What other evidence should I cite?

  223. 223.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @guachi:

    The academic definition of racism notes that anyone can be bigoted or prejudiced. Racism, however, involves institutionalized discrimination. Personally, I think that’s a valid distinction.

  224. 224.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bostondreams: You know, at this point, I’m almost starting to believe the “Andy Kaufman-esque performance art” conspiracy theorists. Because it seems to me that nothing could possibly be as scandalous, and this dumb – dumbly scandalous? Scandulously dumb? – as this administration, by accident. It’s *got* to be some deliberate trolling of the American citizenry, damn it!

  225. 225.

    Chyron HR

    @Dmas0n:

    I would ask you to cite some example of [racial politics] being successful.

    Well, “God-Emperor Trump” (as y’all call him) seems to be doing very well with it.

  227. 227.

    Leto

    @Major Major Major Major:

    For me, two defining features of gen x are AIDS and having strong feelings about Kurt Cobain’s death.

    I think I was 9-10 when AIDS was first announced on the nightly news? Was that ’85? Regarding Cobain yeah that sucked. But life goes on. His kid, Francis Bean, recently celebrated her 2 year sober mark. Came across that this morning scrolling through news.

  231. 231.

    Immanentize

    @Mnemosyne:
    UGH. AIDS is a pretty painful topic for me, but I looked up the demographics. In the epidemic, 1981-2000, 85% of those who contracted Aids we’re between 20 and 50. This translates to about 30% gen xers in the 80’s moving to over 60%gen xers in the 90’s. Damn.

  232. 232.

    Miss Bianca

    @Dmas0n: Ork away, sea lion. Maybe you can get one of your straw men to throw you a fish.

    Or as Harriet Vane might put it, “you may make as much noise as you like, gentlemen – the Dean ain’t coming down tonight.”

    @different-church-lady: Oh thank you, thank you for that! It wanted nothing else to put the cherry on the Troll Roll for me!

  233. 233.

    Matt McIrvin

    @M31: Back when I was excessively patient with right-wing assholery, an acquaintance of mine was pushing one of the Family Research Council’s garbage anti-gay papers, which he claimed put to rest forever the myth that lesbians were safer from sexually transmitted diseases.

    For some reason, I read the thing. The paper’s key claim was that lesbians had more sex with men than straight women did. Apparently lesbianism was this drug-fueled orgiastic lifestyle involving constant sex with everybody.

    All I could tell the guy was “look, I don’t have statistics here, but I just happen to know a heck of a lot of lesbians, and this is just not consistent with experience.”

  236. 236.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chyron HR:

    Jim Crow laws were also pretty successful in keeping the Black population of the South oppressed.

    Apparently thinking mean things about old white men is the new Jim Crow. I’ll bet it’s in the dictionary.

  238. 238.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Major Major Major Major: I was a bit too out of the music loop to be seriously affected by Kurt Cobain’s death, even though I was of exactly the age that I was supposed to be. My mom claimed a few years ago that I’d been a big Nirvana fan. I think she was extrapolating from “thinking Smells Like Teen Spirit was a pretty good song.”

    I remember Amanda Marcotte writing that that was the moment everything good in the world seemed to die for her, like boomers talking about JFK.

  239. 239.

    Immanentize

    @Major Major Major Major:. Take care of yourself. If anxiety has got you then this might not be the place for you right now? It is a pool of freely expressed anxieties (which then again, maybe (like for me) you find it comforting?)

  240. 240.

    opiejeanne

    @Miss Bianca: I think sometimes the emergence of surprising comments by very polite people under anesthesia and/or by the elderly who are losing the plot is not just because they’ve repressed it for politeness but sometimes because they worked to eliminate racism and other things from their adult life that they had learned in childhood.
    My mother went through a large change in her attitudes about POC when she returned to work in the late 60s when she got to actually know some and work with them. Not just the facade of politeness but learning real friendship with them and respect for them. When Alzheimer’s set in she reverted to her childhood attitudes, to nonsense she learned in a family not known for respect for minorities.

  241. 241.

    J R in WV

    @Dmas0n:

    @dnfree:

    Isn’t it the right wing that deals in stereotypes?

    I thought so for a long time too but it turns out that these types exist at both extremes. Progressive bigots exist. Who knew?

    Interesting to see two bots talking to one another, or to herself as the case may be.

    Neither of you, if you are two different bots, have ever been here before. Never, according to the Google. Not part of this community at all. I don’t know why you care about our discourse, which pleases us at 3 am.

    So I’m not going to respond to either of you again, and I’m adding you to my pie filter, which converts your stupid pissing and moaning into statements about pie. You will forever more only speak about pie on my instance of Balloon Juice, praise the inventor of that tool, and it’s implementors here.

    Good bye and come this way not again!

  243. 243.

    Mnemosyne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I remember Amanda Marcotte writing that that was the moment everything good in the world seemed to die for her, like boomers talking about JFK.

    Meh. For my slightly older Gen X age cohort, that was the Challenger explosion, especially since for many of us it happened on live TV inside our classrooms.

    I was already in my 20s when Cobain died, so it was sad, but in no way surprising.

  245. 245.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: I thank my parents for 1) helping to educate me regarding AIDs and how it was transmitted and 2) making sure that I knew safe sex practices. I know I followed Ryan White’s story, mainly because he was kid like me, though I also understand now how that minimalized/marginalized LGBT, minority, and poor communities who were hit hardest.

  247. 247.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Immanentize: I think a lot of people about my age (born 1968) got HIV just barely late enough for the new protease-inhibitor regimens to keep them from dying. And many weren’t so lucky.

  248. 248.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @Major Major Major Major: Very sorry to hear that about your anxiety. Have someone quite close to me that struggles with that, so I understand (so I think). Also sorry that I came at you so hard. Shouldn’t have done that, no excuse.

  249. 249.

    Leto

    @Mnemosyne:

    For my slightly older Gen X age cohort, that was the Challenger explosion, especially since for many of us it happened on live TV inside our classrooms.

    I think that was fourth grade for me. My class was definitely watching on live TV, as we had for previous shuttle launches.

    Weird anecdote: I was an instructor for my military career field for a few years. I discovered, by accident, that one of my Airmen was the nephew of Dr. Ronald McNair. Didn’t know exactly what to say other than he and his crew were true hero’s. He was a real smart kid, did really well with the course.

  252. 252.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mnemosyne:

    Meh. For my slightly older Gen X age cohort, that was the Challenger explosion

    For me too, because I was a big nerd and my friends and classmates were too. I’d believed most of the stuff NASA said about what the Shuttle meant for space and the human future. That was the point that it really became clear that wasn’t happening.

    (The Columbia disaster had a much, much smaller cultural effect. I’ve heard that kids who were about the age I was when Challenger blew up regarded Columbia more or less as a story about a small plane crash.)

    9/11 was the other, bigger one, though by that time I was older and it probably conditioned my reactions, maybe in bad ways.

  253. 253.

    germy

    Look what the Intercept retweeted:

    The Intercept has obtained DMs from a private Twitter group with @WikiLeaks and its most loyal supporters. It includes:

    – A desire for GOP to win the 2016 election
    – Trolling
    – Anti-semitism
    – Rampant misogyny, sexist attacks on feminists
    – Transphobiahttps://t.co/pYtZqRvVOG— Micah Lee (@micahflee) February 14, 2018

  256. 256.

    germy

    @Matt McIrvin: Saddest thing when I saw the Challenger explosion, the father of one of the astronauts who kept smiling at the sky. He didn’t understand what he was seeing. His wife’s expression changed to horror as she realized something was wrong. But for a moment the father didn’t understand. Then it dawned on him.
    It was heartbreaking.

  258. 258.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Cacti:

    Who a majority of Boomers helped put into office.

    You might want to check the exit polling from the 1980 election. The under 30 demographic was the only group that didn’t give St. Ronnie a majority.

  259. 259.

    different-church-lady

    @germy:

    We are pleased to announce that we are adding to our editorial board the members of a… wait, what? Okay, forget what we were about to say. — New York Times (@graylady) February 14, 2018

  261. 261.

    germy

    An AP journalist tweeted an article he co-wrote about WikiLeaks publishing private info causing harm to individuals."He's always been a rat," Assange said. "But he's jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue," and instructed people to start trolling him pic.twitter.com/Ei83osBV21— Micah Lee (@micahflee) February 14, 2018

  263. 263.

    opiejeanne

    @Cacti: We weren’t all in elementary school. I had a friend born just after WWII who marched with MLK jr and was arrested with his father at a lunch counter. He was a freshman in college.

  264. 264.

    Matt McIrvin

    @different-church-lady: I was in junior high–I of course knew a lot of the Beatles’ songs, but since the Beatles broke up when I was a toddler, I was only vaguely familiar with who they were as individuals–I didn’t necessarily associate their various solo careers with “former Beatle”.

    Until Lennon was killed, and then it seemed like a lot of kids my age got a retrospective crash course in Beatleism, and many of us became fans.

  267. 267.

    different-church-lady

    @germy:

    There are going to be lots of people wildly mischaracterizing the WL story

    How dare they do that! That’s Glenn’s job!

  268. 268.

    Amir Khalid

    It’s interesting that a post observing the casual sexism of two men has commenters like the amaranthine one denouncing the mere observation as racist and ageist simply because mistermix mentioned that the men were old and white. Would those words be any less sexist if the men were something else?

  269. 269.

    Matt McIrvin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Back in the 1980s/1990s, the Boomers were actually a more-liberal-than-average cohort. They were more liberal than the GenXers in the 90s.

    Since then, they’ve moved way to the right and the GenXers have actually moved left. I think the boomers started watching Fox News and the median GenXer, who had been sort of South Park vulgar-libertarian, got disgusted with the right over gay rights, war, religion and race.

  270. 270.

    EBT

    @The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: All I did so far was post it to twitter, and end it with a ko-fi link. I am not getting huge amounts of money, but I only have like 100 followers on my adult account. I think Chuck Tingle writes about 6000 words per thing he puts on whatever ereader service he sells on if you want to look at that route.

  271. 271.

    Groucho48

    @raven:

    Buffalo grrl Ani Difranco…

    I am not a pretty girl
    That is not what I do
    I ain’t no damsel in distress
    And I don’t need to be rescued, so
    So put me down, punk
    Wouldn’t you prefer a maiden fair?
    Isn’t there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?
    I am not an angry girl
    But it seems like I’ve got everyone fooled
    Every time I say something they find hard to hear
    They chalk it up to my anger
    And never to their own fear, imagine you’re a girl
    Just trying to finally come clean
    Knowing full well they’d prefer you were dirty
    And smiling, and I am sorry
    But I am not a maiden fair
    And I am not a kitten
    Stuck up a tree somewhere
    .
    .
    .
    And what if there are no damsels in distress?
    What if I knew that, and I called your bluff?
    Don’t you think every kitten
    Figures out how to get down
    Whether or not you ever show up?
    I am not a pretty girl
    I don’t really want to be a pretty girl
    I wanna be more than a pretty girl

  273. 273.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Matt McIrvin: I think as folk get older and are no longer working that they need something to do. Some volunteer or get a hobby, others gravitate to cable.

    ETA: My point was to dispel the “common wisdom” that boomers gave us Reagan.

  275. 275.

    JPL

    @LAO: I read earlier that the Judge is upset with the Mueller team for not setting a court date for Manafort and Gates. Could it be something such as that?

  277. 277.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    You might want to check the exit polling from the 1980 election. The under 30 demographic was the only group that didn’t give St. Ronnie a majority.

    I was under 30 at the time of the election, you can bet the house on me not voting for Ronald Reagon, the second traitorous president of my life. The Republicans have a roll going, the last Republican president who wasn’t a traitor was Dwight Eisenhower, who was if not a personal hero, was really a great strategist and general, just as important for a World War.

  278. 278.

    DissidentFish

    Wow I had a great “old white men” story but I ain’t wading into this thread. Peace out comrades

  279. 279.

    EBT

    @Miss Bianca: I am an exhibitionist. That account has a lot of photos and videos of me too. Writing down stuff (stuff I’ve done no less) is kinda tame for me.

  280. 280.

    dnfree

    @J R in WV: @J R in WV: 3 I’m a frequent reader, infrequent commenter, because although the Balloon-Juice community is admirable in many ways, the haste by some to insult anyone they don’t consider part of the group can be difficult to deal with.

    Stereotyping and generalizations about members of a group is not exactly the same thing as institutional racism. My mom was from West Virginia, and people from there don’t like being called hillbillies or asked if they married their cousin. Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials don’t appreciate being treated as if they’re all the same, especially in a negative way.

    I realize you’re now seeing this all as “pie pie pie”, but it’s disappointing to find that I can agree with the community here on 95% of political and social issues, and yet be called a troll and insulted over that 5%, or even over a misinterpretation of what I’m saying. You can accept differences among the core group, but not among those of us on the fringe.

  281. 281.

    dopey-o

    @Barbara: …the word facilitator is not chosen without serious thought…
    i once worked a job whose title was “Disaster Facilitator”. still not sure if i was doing any good or not.

  282. 282.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @opiejeanne: that’s one of my biggest fears–I was raised having the poison poured in my ears, and I’ve worked very hard to leave it behind me. I’m afraid that if and when I start slipping cognitively, that stratum may emerge.

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