Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

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

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Books are my comfort food!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Sunday Morning Open Thread: “Life Is Short. Make Something.”

Sunday Morning Open Thread: “Life Is Short. Make Something.”

by | 166 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

So, this happened…

… followed by the inevitable butwutabaud from a well-paid wingnut…

… which was not well received:

Yeah, John Rogers is the guy responsible for the Crazification Factor (also Leverage, and many other things):


.

Apart from that, what’s on the agenda as we plan for the upcoming week?

***********
Some more Black Panther links, because why not:

“The Stars of ‘Black Panther’ Waited a Lifetime for This Moment” (NYTimes)

Ishaan Tharoor, “Why Wakanda Matters” [spoilers] (Washington Post)

Jamelle Bouie, “Black Panther Is a Marvel Movie Superpowered by Its Ideas” (Slate)

Lawrence Ware, “‘Black Panther’ and the Revenge of the Black Nerds” (NYTimes)

Carvell Wallace, “Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for Black America” (NYTimes)

… This is all part of a tradition of unrestrained celebration and joy that we have come to rely on for our spiritual survival. We know that there is no end to the reminders that our lives, our hearts, our personhoods are expendable. Yes, many nonblack people will say differently; they will declare their love for us, they will post Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela quotes one or two days a year. But the actions of our country and its collective society, and our experiences within it, speak unquestionably to the opposite. Love for black people isn’t just saying Oscar Grant should not be dead. Love for black people is Oscar Grant not being dead in the first place…

This is how we do with one another. We hold one another as a family because we must be a family in order to survive. Our individual successes and failures belong, in a perfectly real sense, to all of us. That can be for good or ill. But when it is good, it is very good. It is sunlight and gold on vast African mountains, it is the shining splendor of the Wakandan warriors poised and ready to fight, it is a collective soul as timeless and indestructible as vibranium. And with this love we seek to make the future ours, by making the present ours. We seek to make a place where we belong.

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    I am taking the housemates to see it tomorrow afternoon and I am super excited! I splurged on IMAX and because I have not been to a movie theater since like Harry Potter 5, the sticker shock was considerable. No regrets at all.

  6. 6.

    Brachiator

    I shared a table with a sweet older white couple while having breakfast. They were talking about movies and mentioned that their daughter took them to see Black Panther, which they really enjoyed. They also mentioned that their daughter really liked how women were portrayed in the movie.

    Lots to enjoy.

    I ran across an article at some comic book/movie site that shouted about rumors that the upcoming Aquaman movie has action scenes which will put other movies to shame. What these types of fans forget is that the most successful comic book superhero movies don’t just bring fights and action to the big screen. Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy, the new Thor movie bring heart and soul, some well placed humor and blend a few ideas into the narrative.

  7. 7.

    Anne Laurie

    @Brachiator:

    I ran across an article at some comic book/movie site that shouted about rumors that the upcoming Aquaman movie has action scenes which will put other movies to shame.

    As someone who lost her heart to Prince Namor when I was 12 or 13, I have to admit that seeing a not-at-all-white-bread Arthur Curry is something I’m quite curious about!

  8. 8.

    J R in WV

    So, Mary G, you on the west coast, are you thus up late?

    And Satby, you’re in far NW Indiana, are you up early?

    I’m just up in the middle of the night, listening to the rain, going back to bed in a few to see if I can squeeze out a couple more hours of sleep…. insomnia sucks.

  14. 14.

    Dog Mom

    Good Morning – I have a question for folks. I got an email from a shopping points program that I am signed up for but never pay much attention to. It was advertising something called ‘fuboTv’ I think its a streaming service. I was immediately disgusted by the name and thought this can’t be real. Anyone hear of it?

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    @Anne Laurie:

    As someone who lost her heart to Prince Namor when I was 12 or 13, I have to admit that seeing a not-at-all-white-bread Arthur Curry is something I’m quite curious about!

    Jason Momoa was a good casting choice and did well in Justice League. I hope the movie does well.

    ETA. I always thought that Namor was a cool, brooding anti-hero.

  25. 25.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning ?!
    I’m way above the flood level, and it’s receding now. But the poor people on the other side, this is the second time in 18 months it’s flooded that much. A “500 year flood” now happening almost yearly.

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    FYI:
    While at Howard, Chadwick Boseman and his fellow drama studying students were accepted into a theater program at Oxford. They didn’t have the money. So, in steps Howard Alumna – Phylicia Rashad. She told the young people that they were going. She picked up the phone, made a few calls, and she, along with Denzel Washington, paid for the students to go.??
    Also in that group of students?
    The actress who plays Beth in This Is Us.

  31. 31.

    Lapassionara

    @OzarkHillbilly: I currently have flood remediation equipment in my basement, thanks to a stopped drain. And I don’t live in a flood plain.

    Good morning, everyone.

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    Before electric lighting, people went to bed shortly after sunset, and got up around dawn, but in between, there was a waking period of 2-3 hours.

    It might not be insomnia. It might be nature’s way of saying you should go back to that pattern.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Oh nononononooooo. I will probably never see one like that again. ’93 was epic.From that article:

    Few disasters in U.S. history match the devastation of 1993, when hundreds of levees along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers failed, killing 50 people and causing more than $15 billion in damage. One of the most remarkable aspects of the 1993 flood was its duration. From May through September, major flooding occurred across North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

    Some 50,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. And 75 towns were “totally and completely under flood waters,” according to an account by Lee W. Larson, Chief of the Hydrologic Research Laboratory at NOAA’s National Weather Service. “It was certainly the largest and most significant flood event ever to occur in the United States,” Larson said.
    ……………….
    According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, water overtopped or damaged 40 of 229 federal levees and 1,043 of 1,347 non-federal levees.
    Among the other monumental effects in 1993:

    Barge traffic on both mighty rivers halted for almost 2 months.
    Bridges were out or not accessible on the Mississippi River from Davenport, Iowa to St. Louis, Missouri.
    Ten commercial airports were flooded.
    All railroad traffic in the Midwest was halted.
    The 1993 and 1994 harvests were lost.
    Numerous sewage treatment plants were destroyed.

    Or at least I hope I never see another flood like that.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    Two incidents hit The Miami Herald in recent days that underscore new tactics by those seeking to discredit mainstream media, and they augur what experts said are dark days in the battle between credible news and misinformation.
    Both incidents came in the wake of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14 when a teenage gunman killed 17 students and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
    In the first incident, a perpetrator used a software tool to create two fake tweets that looked like they came from the account of Alex Harris, a Herald reporter preparing tributes to the slain students.

    We’ve already seen this in police investigations. There’s also a program that creates fake text exchanges btwn 2 people. It looks identical to text messages when it’s printed off. So it would be your telephone number and then what you “wrote” and then the other person’s telephone number and what they wrote in response, except it’s fake. Someone can create this “record” of a text exchange, print it off and take it to police to implicate someone falsely for harassing or stalking or making threats, or really any other kind of crime.
    Police absolutely love texts because it’s a transcript of a exchange btwn 2 people that anyone can bring them, and bring it to them they do. Police get a LOT of printed-off text exchanges. The accused then has to get their phone records to show accusers number wasn’t called if they are questioned by police on the text they “sent” because here’s this piece of paper they got with your phone number, what looks exactly like a screen shot of your text, and you are denying you wrote/sent it.
    I suggest everyone stop using their phones, immediately, just to be on the safe side :)

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara: That sucks. Our last house had a leaky basement w/o a floor drain. Just gutters around the perimeter with a catchbasin in the corner for a sump pump. It worked OK except for during frog choker thunderstorms that knocked out the power.

    No, we didn’t keep anything of real value down there. Why do you ask?

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I am safe from that gambit. I don’t text. Period. Never have, never will. If I have something to say to someone and can’t be bothered to actually talk to them, than it probably doesn’t need to be said.

    And no, I don’t live in a cave, but I have spent a considerable amount of time in them.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    Besides, the correct thing to ask is “what about Blade?” There have been other movies with headlining black superheroes (“Spawn”, “Steel”), but most of them stank; “Blade” was a pretty good, over-the-top popcorn movie, started a successful franchise, and has the distinction of being the first successful Marvel superhero movie, which is a remarkable thing in hindsight since Marvel dominates this landscape so completely today.

    But there’s an obvious answer: “Black Panther” doesn’t just star a black superhero; it’s a wildly popular superhero movie where nearly everyone in it is black. The heroes, the villains, the supporting characters. It takes place in a whole country of black people. There’s not one black character shouldering the whole burden of representation, which is the usual situation in big Hollywood pictures.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I text with my youngest. They’re kind of embarrassing to go back to read because I’m impatient and I expect him to respond immediately so it will be one text and then another 40 seconds later. He’s in marching band and I was once texting him where he wasn’t responding and he finally texted back “come on. I was on the field” DROP that instrument and text your mother!

    People are so bad sometimes. Can you imagine? Spending all that time and energy creating a false record and then risking “making a false report” just to make someone else’s life a living hell? Christ. Get a hobby.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @Brachiator:

    That is why I liked Deep Space Nine more than all of the other Star Treks. Characters were more fully realized and each had his or her own quirks.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    @Kay: At least technology also disproves this if it is false.

    So sorry for all of you in flood areas. Be safe and don’t drive; that’s like the most dangerous thing you can do.

  45. 45.

    woodrowfan

    @OzarkHillbilly: I don’t write letters. Period. Never have, never will. If I have something to say to someone and can’t be bothered to actually talk to them, than it probably doesn’t need to be said.

    same thing.

  46. 46.

    ThresherK

    @OzarkHillbilly: +1 for frogchoker, a term made for spring melts everywhere.

    @Matt McIrvin: My wife liked Blade and about an hour of all the sequels added together. I couldn’t get into it.

    But BP is another thing entirely. Quite looking forward to it.

  48. 48.

    Matt McIrvin

    @ThresherK: I thought “Blade” was fine cheese, a guilty pleasure. I saw it on video some time after it came out and thought “wow, this movie is ridiculous, but for some reason I’m enjoying it.”

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: My wife likes texting because she can answer when it is convenient for her. Makes a lot of sense. Of course, I feel the same way about phone calls. Leave a message, I’ll call you back when it is convenient for me. If it is inconvenient for them, they can ignore it and call me back when it is convenient. Eventually conveniences line up.

    People can be horrible shits at times. Especially the ones who hold a grudge. They are gonna get even if it’s the last thing they do. I try to keep those people out of my life.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @WereBear:

    It seems like texts and tweets and Facebook posts and all the rest have become so much a part of their investigations that they’re dependent on them. There’s this kind of false legitimacy to them, they appear more authentic when really they always should have been questionable. They’re not in any way “authenticated”.

    We saw something similar happen with the ACORN tapes. They were treated like they were surveillance footage or something when they were no way NEAR authenticated. That could happen to anyone. Anyone could piece together footage of an encounter with someone else and make it look terrible. I loved how the ACORN scammers then offered the “whole” tape or the “real” tape. That’s no more legit than the tape they admitted they edited. None of it should have been used.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @ThresherK: …Wesley Snipes actually tried for years to get a Black Panther feature made, starring himself. He probably wouldn’t have been right for the part.

  53. 53.

    satby

    @debbie: I’m just lucky I’m not working now, I’ve been sick since I got back from Cambodia. I would have called off for two more weeks of I hadn’t already quit.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You know this but it’s just amazing how much trouble one person lying can cause. Going backward thru the police investigation in one of these there’s a kind of “patient zero” – the initial transmitter- who started it all buried under the bullshit that followed.

  55. 55.

    debbie

    An apt poem for these rainy times:

    Song

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
    Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
    For those that wander they know not where
    Are full of trouble and full of care;
    To stay at home is best.

    Weary and homesick and distressed,
    They wander east, they wander west,
    And are baffled and beaten and blown about
    By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
    To stay at home is best.

    Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
    The bird is safest in its nest;
    O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
    A hawk is hovering in the sky;
    To stay at home is best.

    (poets.org poem of the day)

  56. 56.

    satby

    So a former friend’s wingnut granddaughter is bragging on FB that she’s been accepted into a Master’s program at the Institute of World Politics. She mentions Seb Gorka as a lecturer there, is that a legit school or is it the Regent University of the political set?

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    Just a tip for anyone who is going to watch Black Panther for the first time. There are two scenes during the end credits. One comes fairly quickly and the other one comes after the final credits. Make sure you don’t leave the theater too soon.

  59. 59.

    bemused

    I hadn’t paid attention to this and my head hurts. NRA is tax-exempt nonprofit organization with 501(c)(4) status. IRS: 501(c)(4) meaning it’s regarded as a “social welfare organization”, ” must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community such as bringing about civic betterment and social improvements.” NRA 2015 tax return claims it’s primary mission as “firearms safety education and training and advocacy on behalf of safe and responsible gun owners.”

    NRA critics asserts NRA should not have 501(c)(4) status because NRA spends less time and money providing a genuine service to the public at large than it does on political lobbying and NRA activities benefit private gun industry. I definitely agree with the critics and there are a lot more organizations that I think shouldn’t have tax-exempt, nonprofit status but this is the way our esteemed legislators want it. Maybe when our savvy, smart kids are voting and run for office, there will be changes…maybe. I just hope I will live long enough to see it.

  60. 60.

    ThresherK

    @Matt McIrvin: As lover of musicals I begrudge nobody their enjoyable flicks which aren’t Shakespeare.

    That said, I am going to an upcoming audience sing-along screening of Singin in the Rain. I need to practice.

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: I hope your health returns. No good deed goes unpunished.

    Am glad you are out of the drama at the eye doctor’s office. Would love to hear some fly on the wall stories, though. Inertia is such a strong presence; about the main thing that explains that “manager’s” reign of error.

    But you are in a saner place now. And time to make some wonderful spring-scented products.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Patricia Kayden: My daughter is usually too impatient for me to watch all the Marvel credit cookies. She gets really insistent about leaving, says “watch it on YouTube” (Disney is pretty good at quashing them, though, so it took me a long time to see the second one from Thor: Ragnarok, which was not very consequential).

    When she was a little kid she had almost a phobia about watching the ends of things–she’d often turn off a video just before the credits rolled.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The saddest to me was the job and family services worker in Ohio. It didn’t go anywhere because by that point people seemed to realize “they can edit these tapes! Eureka!” but still. You think about someone just going to work and dealing with the public, which is hard enough, and then you get these asshole, malicious ACTORS who think they’re so smart. The sneering cleverness of the scam bothered me, the whole scenario of these privileged young people starting a CAREER based on setting people up- tricking them.

  68. 68.

    Gin & Tonic

    @satby:

    is that a legit school or is it the Regent University of the political set?

    No; it makes Regent look like Reed College. But I guess if she is a wingnut she’ll love it.

    Someone on Reddit says it’s “somewhere to the right of Curtis LeMay.”

    Disclaimer: my son is in an IR Masters program at an actual, legitimate school.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The office is painted. It looks great and he finished when he said he would. When we bought the property it was an upholstery shop and we replaced all the wood trim and doors- they’re nice- and there isn’t a speck of paint from the walls on any of it. I will give his name to the Fancy Ladies of Book Club. They’re constantly redecorating :)

    It’s so funny how it works in a small place. He paid me 1600 for legal work last year and that’s about what the painting cost, so we’re even. It was so close I was wondering if he bid it based on what he paid me since it’s a good price. I’ll send him as much work as he can handle so if so that was smart.

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    @Matt McIrvin

    Am one of those oddballs who always sat through the entirety of the closing credits at a movie theater, a habit still maintained for movies on Netflix and the like. I like reading them, especially for spotting catchy or unusual names.

    Friend was running an extensive naval-centric role playing game set during the Napoleonic era and asked me to come up with a list of names for NPCs. The next day handed over a couple of pages of possible names, categorized by nationality (English, Irish, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.). He asked how I could crank out so many suitable names so fast. Answer was “I read end credits.”

  72. 72.

    satby

    @Gin & Tonic: how she turned out is kind of shocking because her grandparents (my former friends) were pretty liberal. She interned for Ted Cruz. She went to St.Mary’s, but she’s really right wing even for Notre Dame. I assumed there was something skeezy about her chosen masters program.
    Sad, she was a nice little girl when I saw her.

  77. 77.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    Ugh. It’s already very concerning and frustrating that rightwingers will glom onto, instantly believe any obvious, crackpot, made-up garbage on the internet and spread everywhere and who can’t be convinced or don’t care it’s junk and they were duped. The woman who emphatically refused to believe the CNN reporter with evidence that she and her compadres was influenced by Russian bots, the Republican legislator who apologized for retweeting Florida student was a paid activist, etc, etc are people who so easily fall for junk news. The legislator said he did do some “research” before he retweeted. Their “research” only involves rightwing sites and each other.

  78. 78.

    Lapassionara

    @OzarkHillbilly: neither do we.

    Someone offered to put in what you are describing, for a mere $15,000. So, we will live with the intrusion, for now. It was the stopped drain we did not expect. Why, I don’t know, as we should have.

    Live and learn,

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    @Matt McIrvin:
    I’m always bothered when people don’t stay for the end credits. I like to do it out of respect to those who worked on the film, especially if I know there’s going to be a memorial dedication. It ticked me off to see people walk out of The Last Jedi before “In loving memory of Carrie Fisher” appeared on the screen.

  81. 81.

    Amir Khalid

    @WereBear:
    I guess that over there you don’t get chased out by the cleaning crew starting work 15 seconds into the end-credit roll.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara: STL and it’s immediate surrounding suburbs have their sanitary sewers and storm sewers connected together. In heavy down pours they can get overloaded and back up into basements. A more common occurrence in some neighborhoods than others.

  83. 83.

    geg6

    Though I support everyone following their comic book bliss wherever it leads, I will not ever see this film. Never liked comic books, never saw a superhero movie that I found the least bit interesting. I broke down recently and watched the first hour of “Wonder Woman” because I was intrigued by all the female empowerment buzz about it. I’m shocked I lasted the hour. I found it supremely boring and stupid. I get that people love this stuff and I don’t fault anyone for that but I’ll never understand the attraction. I feel exactly the same way about horror films. I will never get it.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    So never correct Mona Charen uttered a few inconvenient truths at CPAC and had to be escorted out by security for her own safety. Tell me again how we are supposed to compromise with these people?

  87. 87.

    Baud

    @geg6: I don’t do horror either. Isn’t the real world horrible enough?

    @OzarkHillbilly: We give them what they want, and they for their part invent a different set of lies to hurl at us.

  89. 89.

    Emma

    @geg6: Your imagination doesn’t run in that direction. I have a similar block regarding some “classic” literature in a number of fields. Reading Lord of the Rings was utterly boring to me. It became an exercise in admiring the author’s impressive world-building skills and tracking his emotional and psychological attachment to a world that never was. The Great Gatsby? Ugh. Unpleasant rich people acting unpleasantly. For years I’ve found refuge in good non-fiction and what people contemptuously call genre. And don’t get me started on what genre is.

  95. 95.

    Humdog

    Shitstain’s election has been so hard, seeing the vast numbers of white Americans perfectly happy supporting such vulgar racism and sexism is so discouraging. Hearing that black people knew this ugliness for so long and were not surprised was also upsetting, because this has brought my spirits so low, I had to wonder how they have been able to deal with it their whole lives.
    That is one reason why I am so excited that black people get to delight themselves with Black Panther. I want their spirits to soar with the beauty, power and success of this movie. A little dose of happiness they deserve so much more of. I will tag along on the positive wave of feeling, if just for a few hours. I am such a wimp.

  100. 100.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: Which is quite ironic given that they’re not members of Native American tribes. They’re descendants of European immigrants.

  101. 101.

    geg6

    @Emma:

    Ooooo, sit next to me! I despise “Gatsby” and, for good measure, Hemingway. I, too, prefer non-fiction, though there is fiction I really love (Dickens, Twain, some historical fiction, some recent YA series). But give me a big fat biography or history and I’m a happy camper.

    As for movies, I like comedies and documentaries, mostly.

  103. 103.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Patricia Kayden: Naturalized citizens are the new enemy. You can read more at the TPM link in 92.
    @Baud: Bier and Nowrasteh of Cato do good work on immigration related issues. I may not agree with them ideologically but their research and analysis is pretty sound. At least the stuff I have encountered so far.

  105. 105.

    Patricia Kayden

    @geg6: Love comic book movies but will not watch horror movies involving ghosts or demons. “Get Out” is considered to be a horror movie but was more sci-fi, in my opinion.

  106. 106.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Struggling to be heard over the loud applause that ensued, Bier responded, “If you look at the data, the people committing crimes are overwhelmingly native-born Americans. So if you want to talk about the effect of immigrants on the crime rate, they actually lower the crime rate, resulting in a safer society. Obviously there are some immigrants who do commit crimes, just like there were some who committed crimes back when the Irish were the ones coming in.”

    “Oh, I’m Irish, don’t you talk about the Irish,” an older woman angrily called out.

    So…. She’s not an American? DEPORT HER NOW!!!!

  109. 109.

    Patricia Kayden

    @schrodingers_cat: Wow. Well, that was fast. They quickly moved from illegal immigrants to all immigrants. Interesting development given that their President married two Eastern European immigrants.

  110. 110.

    geg6

    @schrodingers_cat:

    It’s weird because I love the Star Wars films (well, not the prequels) and they are in the spirit of superhero type films. Don’t know why I like SW and not superhero stuff.

  111. 111.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: Also this:

    “The data is the thing that’s going to win people over,” he said. “It’s just about showing them that immigrants are not what they think they are and hoping that falls on receptive ears. There are people who can be convinced, people who know immigrants personally, who know they are contributing to society and they’re not all defecating in the woods.”

    But having attended CPAC for the last six years, Bier conceded that the Republican base’s attitude toward immigrants has not significantly shifted.

    “I don’t think it’s that different [from past years],” he said. “There’s always a very large contingent most passionate about immigration—about opposing it. It certainly seems like the passion is always with the side that wants to restrict it and not with the side that wants it to be more open.”

    Yeah, good luck with that.

  112. 112.

    debbie

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Did you hear that part of Trump’s speech where he attempted to use allegory, with immigrants as a snake in a garden?

    Trump uses the song as an allegory to immigration law, suggesting that immigrants who come to the United States in search of a better life and help may end up hurting the country in the end.

    “Did anyone ever hear me do ‘The Snake’ during the campaign” Trump asked the audience to raucous applause. “Because I had five people outside say, ‘Could you do The Snake?'”

    He added: “So this is called, this is called ‘The Snake’ and think of it in terms of immigration. And you may love it or you may say, ‘Isn’t that terrible.’ And if you say, ‘Isn’t that terrible,’ who cares?”

    I must say I never heard about this during the campaign; but to be honest, if we’re going to get into allegories, I see Trump as the scorpion asking the turtle for a ride across the river.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    Someone is going to get ideas

    China’s Communist Party has proposed scrapping presidential term limits, a move that would allow the current leader, Xi Jinping, to stay in power. It is the culmination of a long shift in Chinese politics, says BBC World Service Asia Pacific editor Celia Hatton.

  117. 117.

    schrodingers_cat

    @debbie:

    Trump uses the song as an allegory to immigration law, suggesting that immigrants who come to the United States in search of a better life and help may end up hurting the country in the end.

    Why doesn’t sycophant Maggie H of the Vichy times ask him what the cut-off date for “good immigrants” is. 3 out 4 of T’s grandparents were not born here IIRC.
    Also his own mother was an immigrant. Is she a snake too?

    ETA: I can’t stand to hear the man’s voice. The only speech I heard was the one he gave at the convention. I saw about half an hour of it.

  119. 119.

    geg6

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I love Star Trek! I was a rabid fan from the first episode, which I watched during its original airing and I was a young girl, probably 8 or 9 years old. I’ve watched every film and iteration, some of which are better than others. A big influence on me.

  120. 120.

    Gin & Tonic

    News reports indicating that two members of the Russian women’s punk and protest musical group whose name can’t be mentioned here have been arrested upon entering Crimea. Don’t know more than that right now.

  121. 121.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Patricia Kayden: Hmmmm…. Defecating in the woods?? The horror! Except of course for the times he did it. Fornicating in the woods? He should try it, it’s rather liberating. But don’t do it in the tall grass unless you are inordinately fond of chiggers.

  122. 122.

    Jamey

    @jonrog is the REAL hero of this story for not wearing gloves whilst pushing wheelbarrows full of Catwoman and Transformers money to the bank!

  124. 124.

    Emma

    @geg6: I like Austen (she’s a cynic) and Trollope (ditto). I find more morality, practical politics, and psychological awareness in the Vorkossigan novels than in a hundred so-called “political best-sellers for our time.” I like odd little books on odd little topics, especially when they reveal something about the author. My current craze is the work being done in the Stonehenge landscape and Mike Parker Pearson is my current hero.

    Horror? M.R. James. Arthur Machen. Edgar Allan Poe. I actually find some of Stephen King fascinating, but most modern horror writers leave me utterly cold or wanting to upchuck.

  125. 125.

    tobie

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh gosh. I can think of few women braver than the members of that group. I hope people and politicians everywhere will start banging the drum about this arrest.

  126. 126.

    Emma

    @debbie: Partly that, but partly it feels like watching a group of demented children acting out their fantasies. Except, of course, they’re doing real damage. Tom and Daisy should have been drowned at birth as a precautionary measure.

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: So were you lucky to have purchased your house on the higher side, or was that intentional? They say it’s better to be lucky than good, so I’m not judging either way!

  129. 129.

    suezboo

    To all you poor people being flooded, I give genuine sympathy and this sardonic laugh :Hah ! Three years of drought and the city of Cape Town runs out of water on (new assessment) July 1st.Day Zero – nothing there.Damn those tricky Chinese and their El Ninos and warmings.

  131. 131.

    suezboo

    @Emma:
    Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is a great read if you like a wad of cynicism mixed in with your Austen-type romances.Very clever book.

  134. 134.

    Brachiator

    @debbie:

    That is why I liked Deep Space Nine more than all of the other Star Treks. Characters were more fully realized and each had his or her own quirks.

    Yep. DS9 is the best Trek series for many fans. As you say, the characters were more fully realized, and even the villains had depth and were allowed to grow and have deeper motivations. And the show had a good cast.

  135. 135.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Matt McIrvin:

    There’s not one black character shouldering the whole burden of representation, which is the usual situation in big Hollywood pictures.

    Instead there are two Tolkien white actors.

  136. 136.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator: I too am a DS9 fan. I also like the Mahabharata for the same reason. It has no heroes only flawed individuals. The heroes are not always heroic and the villains have shades of grey. Women are much better realized than the other Indian epic (Ramayana) which is too syrupy for my taste.

  137. 137.

    Gin & Tonic

    @tobie: They have been released. You can find them on Twitter, if you are so inclined, if you know how to spell the word that FYWP doesn’t like.

  138. 138.

    Brachiator

    @bemused:

    I definitely agree with the critics and there are a lot more organizations that I think shouldn’t have tax-exempt, nonprofit status but this is the way our esteemed legislators want it.

    The Koch Brothers and the Republicans have hammered the shit out of the IRS over this and now that Trump is in charge, the IRS will never poke into or challenge these organizations.

  140. 140.

    Gelfling 545

    @OzarkHillbilly: When I worked years ago for the Canadian government one of the officers remarked on the, what he believed to be profoundly American,, tendency to give the country of origin of your remote ancestors when asked about your nationality. He felt it was like we didn’t recognize “American” as an actual nationality.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @Dog Mom:

    Yes. I haven’t used it, but it is real, They were streaming the Olympics and offering a free week at the beginning of the show.

  144. 144.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I too am a DS9 fan. I also like the Mahabharata for the same reason. It has no heroes only flawed individuals. The heroes are not always heroic and the villains have shades of grey.

    I see what you mean, but I might say that DS9 has heroes who become greater because they strive to overcome their flaws and failures. But as you note, the villains have shades of grey and some, Garak, for example, are often positively heroic.

    And you often understand the motivation of the villains, even if you do not want them to succeed.

  145. 145.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @geg6: Eh. I haven’t seen the new Wonder Woman yet, though it sounds like I would enjoy it for the culture clash humor. But the rest of current crop of DC movies have all been supremely boring, even to many comics fans. It’s a common topic of conversation at my FLCS.

    The best super-hero stories are about something other than super-heroes. What happens if you take Three Days of the Condor and add super-heroes to the mix? You get Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the fun of watching Robert Redford and Samuel L. Jackson argue over the ethical use of their super-science.

    One reason I’ve been pushing BP hard at everyone is that it’s on the fantasy/super science end of the Marvel universe. It’s an entirely self-contained story that wrestles with some of the questions underlying the whole comic book ecosystem, like why does the world look just like ours despite the presence of all of these super-scientists inventing all sorts of cool stuff? It’s a very political movie: isolationism vs hegemony, an earlier national leader’s mistakes coming back to bite the current generation, a new leader growing into his role in a new world.

    Add fistfights and car chases. And sonic cannons.

  146. 146.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator: Actually I was talking about the Mahabharata. Both Bhishma and Karna are sympathetic characters even though they are on “wrong side” of the Kurukshetra war and are paragons of virtue in their personal lives.

    ETA: And the heroes, the Pandavas do a lot of awful things many times under Krishna’s guidance to gain ground in the war. The ultimate message, I take away is that war is hell and there are no heroes. Pretty radical for something that was written when war was literally the way of life.

  147. 147.

    Gelfling 545

    I’ll be going to see Black Panther on Wed. The massive crowds may have sudsided somewhat by then, although I’m seeng a lot of repeat viewing on my FB page. I’m quite excited to see it. I came to the superhero genre in my old age. My brothers had comic books when I was a kid but girls were discouraged from reading them in my circles. I guess all that ZAP! BANG! POW! was too violent for our delicate natures. A few years back a younger friend mentioned watching The Arrow on Netflix. I tried it and found it rather cheesy but surprisingly entertaining. Since then I’ve explored others with much the same result on the whole.

  149. 149.

    satby

    @WaterGirl: Mostly luck because I fell in love with the house, but the realtor did tell me the other side had been known to flood. My side is up on the bluff and I’m a block away from the river.

  151. 151.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    I’m kind of a techie, was a software guy for 25 years til I retired. We have smartphones, Android and laptops connected to the internet. But we don’t text, not at all. Ever. Our cell phones have no connectivity here at home, and won’t because of the geography of our site.

    We’re wrapped into a mountainside cove, and the cove faces nearly due south to the local creek. Across the creek is a ridge running east-west. Cell is a line-of-sight set of frequencies. We have had people stand on the top of the big chimney trying to get a connection – not gonna happen.

    Even on the ridge-top to our north, you’re too far from the nearest cell tower to connect. So our phones are turned off nearly all the time. Unless we’re in town AND want to make a call. or expect the other to try to call, turned off.

  152. 152.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Actually I was talking about the Mahabharata.

    But it applies to DS9 as well in some ways.

    I don’t know the Mahabharata well, mainly the version shown on PBS some years ago. And even though there may be no heroes, it seemed to me that there was something heroic to strive for.

    In the Iliad, the Greeks are the heroes, but the Trojans are often depicted as more noble and sympathetic. Here heroism comes at great cost.

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    @debbie:

    Did you ever see the scene where Dax tries to persuade Worf to wear a Speedo on their vacation? Priceless!

    I’m sure I saw it, but mercifully do not recall.

    ETA. By weekend estimates, Black Panther earned $108 million in its second weekend. Going strong.

    Also, although evenings are crowded weekend and weekday matinees usually are much more accommodating.

  155. 155.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: I’m actually going to see Black Panther in just a couple of hours. Am wondering if the amazing buzz around this movie will have me going in with inflated expectations–I just read a friend saying that she’d been spoiled about its amazingness just enough to be mildly annoyed by all the ways in which it was just another Marvel superhero movie.

  156. 156.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I just read a friend saying that she’d been spoiled about its amazingness just enough to be mildly annoyed by all the ways in which it was just another Marvel superhero movie.

    This kind of thing annoys me. If you like Marvel movies, even at the basic level Black Panther is another enjoyable Marvel movie.

    I called it hugely satisfying in my non spoiler review. It’s not perfect and it has to do MCU duty. I think the latest Thor movie is more creative. But hype aside, BP has uniformly good acting and a supremely credible bad guy.

    ETA. BP is closing in on $700 million in global box office. Hype aside, audiences are embracing this movie. Oh, what the hell..

    Wakanda Forever!

    Hope you enjoy it.

  157. 157.

    Aleta

    I watch any video of Ryan Coogler talking that I come across. He’s clear, the way a very smart person with a good heart talks. When he speaks about how he thinks, he makes the amazing sound normal, like “but of course this is how anyone could do it.” Not sitting behind a mystical ego protecting himself, like any other director I can think of.

    About the movie Black Panther, probably everyone’s seen this. A break down (of what he put into) a short fight scene. .

  158. 158.

    Jay S

    @J R in WV:

    Our cell phones have no connectivity here at home, and won’t because of the geography of our site.

    If you consider that a bug and not a feature, you should look at Google voice, a way to route cell phone traffic and text messages through your internet connection.

  159. 159.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Brachiator: Agreed about DS9. The main story about the two sets of cousins is just one part of the entire saga of Mahabharata. So any one version is not enough to give you a full flavor of the epic.
    ETA: The Kurukshetra war is about standing up for your rights.

  160. 160.

    Citizen Alan

    @Brachiator:

    I admit I am somewhat amused that they have finally created a popular version of Aquaman by making him completely unlike any other version of Aquaman that has ever existed.

  161. 161.

    Citizen Alan

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Blade was a great movie, but if you look at it solely through the lens of racial politics, it’s the story of a black man who was raised by a white man to kill a bunch of other white men and at the end he has to kill his own black mother who has been seduced into evil by the head white man.

  162. 162.

    david

    “I worked on CATWOMAN and TRANSFORMERS a year apart…”

    So, Rogers admits to being responsible for TWO pieces of shit. One happened to make money; the other didn’t.
    I’m sure if it were Catwoman that succeeded and Transformers that failed, his opinion would be 180 degrees reversed.

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    @Citizen Alan:

    I admit I am somewhat amused that they have finally created a popular version of Aquaman by making him completely unlike any other version of Aquaman that has ever existed.

    I’ve always believed that the movies could modify comic book superheroes, especially second tier heroes like Aquaman.

  164. 164.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: Having just seen it: agreed.

    It is very much a Marvel superhero movie, and of course that limits what it can do. But it does it very, very well, and it has a phenomenal cast, and the best villain in any MCU movie thus far, and a look that is like nothing else in the Marvel universe or any movie universe.

    For a movie that is a superhero’s solo debut, it’s an ensemble piece to a remarkable degree. I know Danai Gurira’s character returns in Infinity War because she’s in the trailer; I hope more of them do.

  166. 166.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Wonder Woman actually compared favorably to Marvel’s superhero product–it wasn’t better, the ending was kind of ordinary, but it’d make a respectable showing in that company. Aside from some “war is hell” its central concerns were very superhero-y, though; the thing that shines through is Wonder Woman’s absolute and unflinching devotion to heroism in any context, which is something the makers of these movies seem almost reluctant to put in much of the time; they’re afraid of it being silly or unbelievable. But Gal Gadot really sells it.

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