Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

The lights are all blinking red.

When we show up, we win.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

We still have time to mess this up!

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

So many bastards, so little time.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / In the summer, in the city…

In the summer, in the city…

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[Optional soundtrack for post]

The Times has a cool photo spread running today. In the summer of 1978, New York City’s parks commissioner sent photographers out to capture images of folks using city parks. The resulting slides were left in a store room for the next 40 years. Now, they’ll be the subject of an exhibit. Here’s one:

A time-capsule of cringe-worthy fashion and regrettable hairdos! Here’s another:

Hope their grown children (maybe even grandchildren) aren’t surprised by that photo!

Anyhoo, the whole thing is worth a look. If you’ve been familiar with New York City over many years, it’ll remind you of how much it has changed. I sometimes forget that.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  1. 1.

    Karen Potter

    Thanks for ear worm, that is one of those songs that once my mind starts playing I can’t get it to chance stations.

  4. 4.

    hitchhiker

    Lordy, there are tapes!

    Not that I’m in those photos. That song played at the first dance I ever went to, late summer 1966. I was 14 yrs old and about to enter 9th grade in the desperately far-from-the-center-of-the-universe town of Marquette, Michigan.

    The sound of those voices still calls up that feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff in the fog. I don’t know what I’m doing or how to do it or who to do it with or why to do it or when to stop.

    But I’m doing it anyway.

  5. 5.

    germy

    Stevie Wonder said in an interview that the song inspired him to write Living For The City.

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    @Corner Stone:

    My God…high waisted jeans…the horror…
    ***SHUTTERS***

    I’m-a give you the benefit of a doubt on a camera pun.

    Any bad day for Manafort is a good day for America/the civilized world.

    A federal judge on Friday tossed out former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s lawsuit challenging the scope of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

    In her decision, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote that a civil suit is not the way for Manafort to challenge actions by the prosecutors who are working for Mueller’s office.

    ADVERTISEMENT
    “A civil case is not the appropriate vehicle for taking issue with what a prosecutor has done in the past or where he might be headed in the future,” wrote Berman Jackson, who was appointed by President Obama.

    “It is a sound and well-established principle that a court should not exercise its equitable powers to interfere with or enjoin an ongoing criminal investigation when the defendant will have the opportunity to challenge any defect in the prosecution in the trial court or on direct appeal.

    “Therefore, the Court finds that this civil complaint must be dismissed.”

  8. 8.

    Tenar Arha

    Yay. So I’m just gonna put this linky for Janelle Monáe here:

    Thank you to everyone who watched #DIRTYCOMPUTER (the emotion picture) on @BET & @MTV ! It meant the world to all of us who worked on this project . If you missed it , here it is on @YouTube for free w/ LOVE -JM:

  9. 9.

    Karen Potter

    @TenguPhule: I had to look that up; the only thing that might change the station is another 60’s song. That one isn’t as bad as the summer my grandfather kept playing Nancy Sinatra’s “These boots are made for walking” at least once a day.

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    It has a place in the timeless summer hit collection, along with “Hot Fun in the Summertime”, “In the Summertime”, ” Dancing in the Street” etc.

  16. 16.

    germy

    @Tenar Arha: There’s a youtube clip of Janelle performing at the White House for the Obamas. Watching Michelle groove in the audience reminded me of how low we’ve come. Can’t imagine anything that wonderful happening in this administration.

  17. 17.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I went to NYC a couple of times in the late 70s. My recollection is that it was incredibly scruffy and that Times Square was a shithole full of discount stores, XXX bookstores and peepshows. At the time, even my teen brain was wondering why it would be allowed to deteriorate like that.

    For years, I wrote it off to the stupidity of wealthy Americans who simply tended to abandon spaces as opposed to maintaining them. While that tends to be true in a lot of places, I learned over the past couple of weeks that the Times Square thing had been the NYT acting deliberately so as to crush local property values – they owned a lot of it, but wanted control of it all.

    America and New York money boys – such a combination.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MattF: I’m still making my way through the HPSCI report Nunes released this morning. A hot mess would be an understatement. The GOP majority appears to have combined a determined willingness to avoid asking the pertinent questions with taking every answer they did receive at face value with no follow up. I’ll probably put a post up on it later today or tomorrow.

  19. 19.

    Karen Potter

    @Barbara: Which one? If you mean the Nancy Sinatra one; I have to say I didn’t mind it until Grandpa got fixated on that song, though I strongly suspect it had to do with irritating other people.

  20. 20.

    HeleninEire

    Oh thank you for this, Betty. I’ll be back in NYC at the end of May. I’ll definitely go.

  22. 22.

    bemused

    I’d like to contact MSNBC and express support for Joy Reid. I did find some kind of comment email thing on their website but wonder if that’s an effective option. I don’t do twitter other than read some tweeters or any other social media.

  26. 26.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The GOP majority appears to have combined a determined willingness to avoid asking the pertinent questions with taking every answer they did receive at face value with no follow up. I’ll probably put a post up on it later today or tomorrow.

    At this point is there even any difference from active treason in service to Russia by the GOP?

    If they were all Kremlin plants, what would they be doing differently?

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    GEN McCaffrey is a wee bit concerned.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    One obvious and welcome difference between then and now is the substantial number of attractive pocket parks one sees while ambling through Manhattan neighborhoods.

  29. 29.

    germy

    Why do I need an AR-15? Because some day the government may tell me I'm not allowed to put my sick son on a plane and fly him to Italy for treatment. And believe me when I tell you I WILL be putting him on that plane. #AlfieEvans— Doctor Jesse Kelly® (@JesseKellyDC) April 24, 2018

    i need an ar-15 so my son can benefit from socialist healthcare t.co/yNfFReXWAe— abolish ice. send homan to the hague. (@SeanMcElwee) April 26, 2018

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “The foxes told us they weren’t in the henhouse, that the feathers on their fur ‘just happened’ to get there, and all those dead chickens were just a partisan attempt to smear the head fox. And that’s good enough for us.”

  31. 31.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    This is about the time I was first getting to know New York. After I met the lady who has been my wife my entire life, I met with my then-girlfriend in Central Park to break up with her, possibly not too far from where that first picture was taken.

    If you’ve been familiar with New York City over many years, it’ll remind you of how much it has changed.

    Times Square was quite the amazing 24-hour festival of drugs, hookers and pornography. About like “Taxi Driver” depicts. And as a young invincible guy, I thought it was kind of cool to walk around there. Then one day after an absence of not too many years, I took my young daughter up to NYC on the bus (so this must have been mid-90s). I was gritting my teeth, getting ready to walk her as quickly as possible down 42nd street and through all that. And instead I see bright lights, families, a Wax Museum, a theater showing “The Lion King”.

    I felt like Jimmy Stewart seeing his town turn into Pottersville overnight, but in the other direction.

    I heard they’d pushed the hookers just a few blocks north and west, into Hell’s Kitchen, so things weren’t as “cleaned up” as all that. But it was still, IS still 20 years later, a shocker to overlay my memories of Times Square with how it looks today.

  35. 35.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman: Fuck his show of concern. Getting him out of the White House is the sole overriding priority of every remaining American loyal to the Constitution and the country.

  36. 36.

    TenguPhule

    @germy:

    Because some day the government may tell me I’m not allowed to put my sick son on a plane and fly him to Italy for treatment. And believe me when I tell you I WILL be putting him on that plane.

    So he intends to attack an airport, commander a plane at gunpoint and…..

  38. 38.

    germy

    As early as March 2016, Bernie Sanders and his supporters were pushing the notion that superdelegates should deny the will of the voters to flip & support him. t.co/tPAvZdLpZn— Hillary Warned Us (@HillaryWarnedUs) April 27, 2018

    In April 2016, Hillary superdelegates were reporting violent threats from Sanders backers to switch to him. t.co/tYAXdWOA22— Hillary Warned Us (@HillaryWarnedUs) April 27, 2018

  39. 39.

    bemused

    @rikyrah:

    Oh, my heart be still. I was afraid the fire had started up again. This is in my neck of the woods. I live about 90 miles north of Superior, WI and have family living in Duluth, MN. The fire was put out by early evening yesterday and evacuations lifted for the most part. Yesterday the evacuation area was 3 miles west, north and east of refinery and 10 miles south of it. Duluth is north so I think just part of Duluth had smoke. We are in the time of year when much of the snow has thawed uncovering a lot of dry grass etc., high fire danger time and very relieved they got the tank fire out.

  40. 40.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: He’s (GEN McCaffrey) previously tweeted that in his view, Trump is being controlled by a foreign power. He later refused to say anything stronger when asked about it on TV, just said nothing else made sense. I think he’s come about as close as he’s going to to state outright that Trump needs to be taken into custody and removed from office.

  41. 41.

    TenguPhule

    And Reality gives up and calls it a day.

    Wapo Breaking News: Donald Trump announces that the Jerusalem US embassy will cost $500,000, not the original projected $1,000,000,000

    Apparently we’re just gonna rent an office in the old city and trust the locals for security. I’m sure this is just fine.//

  42. 42.

    Aleta

    Older summer NYC photos: I like the ones of NYC kids playing in opened fire hydrants.

    Somewhere I saw an old one (maybe a shot that was set up to show constituents the kid-loving softer side of a NY mayor?) that showed the mayor opening a hydrant for some kids so they could cool off on a hot day.

    But the ones I like show the beauty of the water spray and the joy of the wet kids.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule:

    If they were all Kremlin plants, what would they be doing differently?

    This is a question that my colleagues and I often ask each other.

  44. 44.

    Wild Cat

    @MattF: Ugly? For some. Yet, they were pretty damn creative days. Revival houses (a double-feature art-house matinee at the Elgin for 35 cents, anyone?); free (or affordable) museums and galleries, affordable apartments, street performers who didn’t need politburo approval; bookstores used, new, and subversive; Brian Eno walking down the street, Phillip Glass driving a cab and composing “Einstein”; and a feeling of absolute freedom and a faith that intellect would conquer.

    Now? It’s a corpse for tourists and billionaires to waddle in.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: In a country with highly restrictive firearms laws.
    thelocal.it/20180323/gun-ownership-regulations-shootings-italy

    Italians do not have a fundamental right to bear arms, and there are tough laws regulating both ownership and use of guns in the country.

    Before buying a gun, you first need to get a gun purchasing licence ( Licenza di porto d’armi o Nulla osta) — this is also necessary if you inherit or are given a weapon. To be eligible, you must be over 18, have a certificate from a shooting range to prove you can safely use the firearm, have a clean criminal record, and state that you are not suffering from mental health or drug addiction problems.

    And once you possess a gun, it must be reported to the Interior Ministry within a 72-hour period by going to a police station. Even with the purchasing licence, there are limits to the number of weapons and amount of ammunitions you can get: a maximum of three ‘common guns’ (this generally applies to handguns, but you can find a full definition here) and 200 handgun cartridges, for example.

    Holders of a special Firearms Collectors’ Licence can own a higher number of weapons, but are forbidden from using or moving them and from buying ammunition. In certain cases, they are required to house the weapons in a safe room that meets police specifications.

    Having the purchasing licence doesn’t permit you to carry the gun in public places or to use it, so for that, you need another licence. The three licences that allow you to do this are a hunting licence (allowing you to carry and use hunting weapons only during hunting season and within game preserves), a shooting sports licence (allowing you to transport unloaded guns to a shooting range or safe place), and a concealed carry licence (allowing you to carry a handgun for personal defence). The concealed carry licence is the hardest of the three to get: you need to prove a valid reason, such as working as a security guard or other at-risk profession, and renew the licence every year rather than every six, as for the other two licences.

    There are further limits on the type of guns that are available for civilians to buy, and all military weapons and ammunition are forbidden.

    Most police and security officers carry guns, but their use is strictly regulated and authorized only as “an extreme solution”. The accepted scenarios include the need to defend oneself or others from danger to life, and factors such as the immediacy of the threat and proportionality of the response should be taken into account.

  46. 46.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Aleta: That was very common, thought I thought it was the fire department that opened the hydrant. I used to see that everywhere.

    You mean kids don’t play in the fire hydrants any more?

  47. 47.

    TenguPhule

    The report says that there is no evidence that Trump’s pre-campaign business dealings paved the way for election help from Russia, even though Trump’s financial dealings appear to remain under investigation by the special counsel. It also asserts that apparent efforts by the campaign and Russia to set up a “back channel” after the election were, counterintuitively, evidence that there was not earlier collusion.

    The report disparages the infamous “dossier” compiled by a former British spy as full of “second and third-hand” information, and claims that the file was then used to justify putting Trump campaign associates under surveillance — an assertion vehemently disputed by the FBI. And it all but accuses intelligence officials of deliberately leaking damaging information about Trump to the media before and after the election. It devotes little attention to Trump’s often inconstant explanations of events, while accusing then-Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. of providing inconsistent testimony to the committee about his contacts with the media.

    Much of the report’s section on intelligence leaks is redacted, so it is unclear exactly how they reached those conclusions, but the committee does single out reports by The Washington Post, New York Times, NBC and CNN as among those that raised concerns.

    Choice bits from the Wapo story. Report might as well have been issued straight from the Kremlin.

  49. 49.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    A fond memory from 1977 (IIRC) a block or so away from Times Square was the majesty of the sight of a woman squatting pissing into a storm drain by the sidewalk at about 10 am. Life had not been kind.

  50. 50.

    The Moar You Know

    All those people out and about. You’d never see that today. We’ve swapped wonderful public social institutions for cheap, segregated (in every way) data.

    I don’t think it was worth it.

  51. 51.

    Corner Stone

    @TenguPhule: He said this in March:
    “President Donald Trump said a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will cost $250,000 in a meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday – not the $1 billion he says his staff estimated – but his remarks created confusion. ”
    ” “They put an order in front of my desk last week for a billion dollars. I said, ‘A billion? What’s that for?’ I said, ‘We’re not going to spend a billion dollars.’ And we’re actually doing it for about $250,000. So check that out,” he said.

    “Now, it’s temporary, but it’ll be very nice. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars versus a billion dollars. Is that good?” Trump said. ”
    The link is ABCNews but don’t click it as it has a fucking forced auto-load video of Trump talking.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: Yep. LTG (ret) Hertling and a couple of the younger retired general officers have been willing to go a little bit farther, but there’s a line they don’t want to cross because they don’t want to have the President turn on the general officers/flag officers who are currently serving. Including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Service Chiefs who are the President’s senior and primary military advisors.

  53. 53.

    MattF

    @Wild Cat: Mid-town Manhattan is now a desert– no one actually lives there, MOMA is pretty much the only real cultural institution left. I suppose that 20 or 30 years after the coming Fire and Apocalypse it might become liveable again.

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    Fla hs shooter Nikolas Cruz or Waffle House shooter Travis Reinking weren’t treated like this. Let that sink in America. That’s why Kap took a knee t.co/fv7aR7wFiw

    — shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) April 27, 2018

    This is Des Marrow. This breaks my heart to watch & makes me sick to my stomach. Not because hes been a friend of mine since he was 17, or because We were college teammates, & not because he went on to play PRO. Because if he told this story without video, they’d call him a liar. pic.twitter.com/3YV6AMtPSO

    — Andrew Hawkins (@Hawk) April 27, 2018

  56. 56.

    prostratedragon

    Can’t swear that I’m not wandering through that Bethesda Fountain shot.

    My favorite NYC summer song: “Stoned Soul Picnic”. You can get any kind of train you want.

    “The city was a financial ruin and stuff was busted and it seemed it would be that way forever.” But creative humus.

    Proposed title of last shot in the article: “The Heir.”

  58. 58.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Actually they’re trying to retrofit a property we already own, which if I’m recalling correctly, is a hotel and the land it sits on. My understanding from reporting from a few month ago is that all they’re doing is putting in increased perimeter security and (trying to) retrofit the inside so it is secure from electronic surveillance, as well as restructuring rooms and suites into offices. Additionally, they’re only supposed to be moving a skeleton staff from Tel Aviv. The majority of US diplomatic personnel to Israel will remain at Embassy Tel Aviv.

  60. 60.

    MattF

    @Adam L Silverman: Good luck with that. I’d wonder about the effectiveness of ‘retrofitting’ for enhanced security if it’s short of tearing everything down and rebuilding from scratch.

  63. 63.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Actually they’re trying to retrofit a property we already own, which if I’m recalling correctly, is a hotel and the land it sits on. My understanding from reporting from a few month ago is that all they’re doing is putting in increased perimeter security and (trying to) retrofit the inside so it is secure from electronic surveillance, as well as restructuring rooms and suites into offices.

    And there is no contractor in the world other then Russians who would do all of that in the Middle of a flashpoint area like the Old City for $500K

  64. 64.

    geg6

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Same for me. I spent a lot of time in NYC in the late 70s/early 80s. My high school boyfriend had gone to school in Santa Barbara for photography (Brooks Institute) and, immediately after graduation, moved to NYC for a job. It was the 70s, so plane tickets were cheap, cheap, cheap, what with a $40 one-way ticket from Pittsburgh to Newark on Peoples’ Express. I was in college here and it was easy to fly up to NYC at least once a month and, with a college student’s schedule, stay a few days. Mark, the high school boyfriend, lived in Manhattan in a postage stamp of an apartment, but it was enough for the two of us. We roamed all over Manhattan, going to rock and jazz clubs as often as we could. And, of course, getting drunk and stoned and braving Times Square was a sort of right of passage. We broke up in the mid-80s (still friends, though; he lives in Brooklyn now) and I didn’t get back to the city for quite a few years. I about died when I saw what Times Square turned into. I have to say, in some ways, I prefer the old, dirty Times Square. I hate how it looks like a Disney park. That’s just not NYC to me. That is the antithesis of NYC, IMHO.

  65. 65.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    turn on the general officers/flag officers who are currently serving.

    Its happening anyway. All their enabling of him does is make him believe his own delusions even harder.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: Here it is as an embed so you can see the video, which is unpleasant.

    And here’s the context:
    henryherald.com/news/viral-video-shows-ex-nfl-player-forcefully-arrested-in-henry/article_02f85609-5…

    McDONOUGH — A former NFL player has accused the Henry County Police Department of using excessive force during his arrest in a viral video posted to social media.

    The video was first posted to Instagram less than 24 hours ago and has since garnered national attention. It appears to show two police officers forcing Desmond Marrow into submission, first by pushing him against the bed of a truck and then grabbing hold of his leg to maneuver him to the ground. When Marrow turns to face the officers, accusing them of slamming him on his head, a third officer is shown using force against his throat.

    The man makes choking noises and tells officers, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” He then appears to go unconscious for about 30 seconds, while officers tap him on the shoulder and ask if he is alright. When he comes to, Marrow is helped to his feet.

    The video shows the incident happened in the parking lot of the Jonesboro Road Target.

    “I was falsely arrested and taken into custody in Atlanta, Georgia, Henry County by the Henry County Police,” Marrow writes in the video caption. “I only had my cell phone in my possession and they claimed to be scared for their lives. I had no type of weapon in my possession, I was arrested for having a gun that turned out to be a cell phone.”

    He claims that his teeth were knocked out, he was choked unconscious, and he sustained a shoulder strain and concussion.

    The Henry County Police Department is preparing to release a statement on the matter later today.

    According to county arrest records, Marrow, 30, was arrested only once in Henry County in December 2017. He was held on felony charges of willful obstruction of law enforcement officers by use of threats or violence and terroristic threats and acts, as well as misdemeanor charges of aggressive driving and reckless driving.

    He was booked into the Henry County Jail on Dec. 2, 2017.

    Marrow writes in his Instagram post that at the jail he was thrown “into isolation and labeled me a gang member because of my tattoos.” He claims police later dropped his charges once they learned of the existence of the video and the fact that Marrow is an ex-NFL player. He played two games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 2012 and played in college for the University of Toledo.

    Marrow’s charges were never prosecuted in State or Superior Court, court records show.

    In the video, Marrow begins to cry when officers force him to the ground. He claims he thought he was going to die.

    “They said I was resisting arrest, spitting and assaulting the officers by head butting them,” he writes.

    It appears that the few months since the arrest have been difficult for Marrow. He said in the video post that as a result of the felony arrest, he has lost his wife, is sleeping on the floor and was forced to close a training facility for children. Immediately after posting the video, he started a GoFundMe account entitled “Justice for Des Morrow.”

    “This has affected me mentally and impacted my life in a way that I can’t even humanly describe,” he writes. “This isn’t a cry for sympathy. I just need it to be known. My cry is for justice.”

    The campaign had raised nearly $6,000 of its $15,000 goal as of Friday morning. Marrow is asking for help to pay his medical expenses and to help rebuild a facility “to train the hundreds of kids I have lost because of this traumatic event.”

    I’m going to be very, very, very blunt. If this was happening in this systemic, regular, and routine way to white, Christian Americans there would be armed rebellion. And should African Americans decide they’ve had enough and do so, it would be ethically justifiable under the concepts of just revolution theory, and something that should be supported by all right thinking people regardless of ethnicity or religion.

  67. 67.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @The Moar You Know:

    All those people out and about. You’d never see that today.

    Hate to put a damper on the yelling-at-clouds routine, but I see it all the time. Including in New York. Go to Washington Square, watch the guy with the dozens of pigeons sitting on him, or the street entertainers (which some other grump said doesn’t exist anymore), watch the families walking around, watch the chess players at the permanent tables, sit and jam with the old guys near the fountain or sing along to their oldies, watch the street artists do their thing by the Arch… it’s all there. Just look.

    I spend more time in Greenwich Village and Washington Square when I’m in NYC than around Central Park, so I can’t talk to how the scene looks around where that picture was taken. But when I’ve walked through there, I’ve seen plenty of people out and about in Central Park when I’ve been there: walking dogs, biking, strollers, hanging out on the benches, picnicking. Stopped one day to help out a spanish-speaking tourist group on bicycles (one of their party had slipped a chain and none of them seemed to know how to slip it back on again).

  70. 70.

    The Moar You Know

    Additionally, they’re only supposed to be moving a skeleton staff from Tel Aviv. The majority of US diplomatic personnel to Israel will remain at Embassy Tel Aviv.

    @Adam L Silverman: Not sure there’s enough hazard pay in the world to induce me to take that duty station. Especially given that it’s a converted hotel. The bullets will go right in one end and out the other unless stopped by staff. No thank you.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MattF: I’m not saying it’s a good idea. I’m not saying it can actually be done. I’m just saying what they claim to be doing because the President seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

  72. 72.

    Gravenstone

    @raven: Summer of ’84 was a touchstone year for me, and that song was a large part of its soundtrack. I’ll pretty much always stop and give a listen when it pops up somewhere.

  73. 73.

    geg6

    @geg6:

    I hear they want to tear down Canal Street and put up high end housing. That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. YOU CAN’T TAKE AWAY MY CANAL STREET! YOU JUST CAN’T!

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: I’m sure that either the US Ambassador to Israel or the Special Envoy for Middle East peace, both of whom are former attorneys – the former focusing on real estate transactions and the latter focusing on bankruptcies as a result of real estate transactions for the President – and who have extensive contacts within the Israeli settler movement will be able to find someone.

    Also, most people don’t realize just how infiltrated Russian organized crime is in Israel. Israel is the southern jumping off point for women trafficked from eastern Europe for the sex trade, as well as a number of other licit or illicit goods. The Israeli Defense Minister has long been rumored to be Putin’s, and Russian organized crime’s, man in Israel.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I went to NYC a couple of times in the late 70s. My recollection is that it was incredibly scruffy and that Times Square was a shithole full of discount stores, XXX bookstores and peepshows.

    Yep. I was there and loved every bit of grime. The City had character. You could go to a movie theater and watch the latest Bruce Lee movie. Shit was affordable.

    Yeah, maybe there was weird shit with real estate markets, but that’s also part of the long history of the city, along with more honest, but still problematic attempts to revive various neighborhoods.

    Loved the photos. What a time. Every era reveals something wonderful about the city and the people in it.

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: That isn’t turning on them. Turning on them means completely shutting them out, followed by firing them and trying to replace them with officers who will be more amenable. One of the few things we can be thankful for is that almost every currently serving general officer/flag officer is the result of serving under the Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, and in a couple of cases the Bush 41 administration. And these ladies and gentlemen control the promotion boards.

  77. 77.

    la caterina (Mrs. Johannes)

    @Wild Cat: Same experience. I lived in the area around “79-’87. The Disneyfication of Times Square ruined it for me.

  78. 78.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And should African Americans decide they’ve had enough and do so, it would be ethically justifiable under the concepts of just revolution theory, and something that should be supported by all right thinking people regardless of ethnicity or religion.

    That sound remarkably Civil for an uprising.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    @germy:

    Why do I need an AR-15? Because some day the government may tell me I’m not allowed to put my sick son on a plane and fly him to Italy for treatment. And believe me when I tell you I WILL be putting him on that plane. #AlfieEvans— Doctor Jesse Kelly® (@JesseKellyDC) April 24, 2018

    Ok,

    I’ve read this four times. I need someone to explain this bullshyt to me.

  80. 80.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: Just you wait until Kanye West breaks out some fresh, pro-Republican rhymes for Trump in the White House. We’ll get to see Stephen Miller, Trump, Ivanka and Jared nodding their heads awkwardly on the offbeat.

  81. 81.

    rikyrah

    @TenguPhule:

    Wapo Breaking News: Donald Trump announces that the Jerusalem US embassy will cost $500,000, not the original projected $1,000,000,000

    I got nothing. I can’t even try.

  82. 82.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @geg6:

    what with a $40 one-way ticket from Pittsburgh to Newark on Peoples’ Express.

    People Express! I remember them coming down the aisles selling taking money for tickets. “We take Visa, Master Card, American Express, or good old American cash”. Which means they were selling tickets on board the freaking plane! I’m sure there was some form of airport security as there had been a number of incidents (hijackings to Cuba mostly) already. But I don’t remember what they had.

    Or maybe my memory is wrong and it wasn’t the tickets they were selling on board, just the food and entertainment?

    The people who worked for that airline seemed a really happy bunch, always a good sign for me. I was very sorry to see that experiment end.

  83. 83.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman: Correct me if I am wrong, but weren’t the Bush regime higher ranking officers who remained under Rumsfield rather hostile to President Obama’s initiatives and believed they’d outlast him by virtue of the respective institutions? I recall stories that Obama had to dampen down on officers too eager to rush in where fools feared to tread.

  85. 85.

    TenguPhule

    @rikyrah:

    I’ve read this four times. I need someone to explain this bullshyt to me.

    Shorter Wingnut: Fuck your medical advice and laws. I have a gun. I will hijack a plane if I goddamn feel I have to.

  86. 86.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: WTH? No seriously, what the hell is that? If the government wants to stop you, one AR-15 ain’t going to stop them. They have more lethal and powerful weapons than you can ever amass.

  89. 89.

    Jager

    70’s fashion sucked. My ex wife (split in ’88) sent me a box this week of old family pictures and memorabilia. Lots of shots of the kids which were great, but there’s a picture of the four of us, me in bell bottoms and a tight t-shirt, hair down to my shoulders and a damned mustache like a porn star, she’s wearing a leather mini skirt, boots and a peasant blouse, long straight hair and glasses the size of the windshield on a semi. The girls, 3 and 5 at the time, look either annoyed, ashamed or insulted, probably all three.. On the other hand the 70 MGB in the background still looks good.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Polite violence can be even more effective than impolite violence. Just because I’m bashing your head in, doesn’t mean I have to be rude about it.//

  92. 92.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    will be able to find someone.

    Material costs alone for a renovation would eat up most of half a million. Unless we’re talking actual slave labor here, there is no way any legitimate contractor could make a profit and do the job required for a US embassy in the Middle East.

  93. 93.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Adam L Silverman: I hope he sues the cops now that the video has come out. The NAACP should reach out to him. Couldn’t watch it. Have stopped watching videos showing cops attacking Black people. Feels pointless since most times the cops get off with no punishment anyways.

  94. 94.

    The Moar You Know

    Why do I need an AR-15? Because some day the government may tell me I’m not allowed to put my sick son on a plane and fly him to Italy for treatment. And believe me when I tell you I WILL be putting him on that plane. #AlfieEvans— Doctor Jesse Kelly® (@JesseKellyDC) April 24, 2018

    Ok,

    I’ve read this four times. I need someone to explain this bullshyt to me.

    @rikyrah: It is bullshit. Alfie Evans is the father of a dead boy. Oh, the boy is still able to breathe, sort of, and his heart beats, but he’s been brain dead for months. The parents don’t understand “brain dead”, they are not real bright. The usual forced birth assholes have Schiavoed this case, threatening the hospital, the staff, the NHS, the British Government, and much their credit, all those parties have not backed down. No, they’re not going to keep the poor kid on life support, and no, the parents can’t take him out of the country and do that somewhere else (Italy, in this case).

    Doctor Jesse Kelly® , who I’m now forced to assume is a shit doctor who you wouldn’t take an injured snail to, apparently decided to be a Twitter drama queen and offer up thots and prars to some of the Gods Of American Conservatism, namely a brain-dead kid who should be allowed to die, the Holy AR-15, and the Right To Threaten People With A Gun.

    Not impressed.

  97. 97.

    Gravenstone

    @rikyrah: Fucker needs his gun to be able to threatening people into allowing him to take his sprog to a foreign country for needed medical treatment. As the other tweet pointed out, his hypothetical involved a country with socialized (!) medicine.

  98. 98.

    Gravenstone

    @Jager: Having never met you, nor having clue one what any of you look like – I can still picture every detail you just described. Well done.

  99. 99.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Gravenstone: And why would Italy (or any other country) allow him into their country under those circumstances? I bet he’s a “build that wall” idiot too.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: There is a toddler in England with a degenerative neurological disorder. At this point it has, essentially, destroyed his brain and he is functioning on autonomic systems and whatever responses he makes are autonomic. Stroke his cheek softly and his head turns towards your hand. That sort of thing. His physicians at the specialty hospital in England have determined there is no treatment and no recovery and have recommended palliative care either in hospital, in hospice, or, perhaps, at home until he passes. His parents, as one can imagine and empathize with, refuse to accept this. He was removed from his breathing support/life support, but has managed to continue to breath on his own. His parents are once again in court arguing that this is evidence that the diagnosis is wrong. The Pope has placed an air ambulance flight (private jet), with appropriate crew at the parents disposal and offered free care at the Vatican affiliated hospital in Rome. The English High Court, after hearing from the experts – including the child’s physicians, the ethics review board from the hospital, outside physicians and ethicists – refuse to authorize the parents to take the child out of the country. Arguing that despite their understandable intentions, doing so could put their son at immediate risk, which would be ethically irresponsible. This has now been picked up as a cause celebre in the American conservative sphere, similar to Terry Schiavo, and is being used to 1) bash socialized medicine as really medicine intended to kill people unnecessarily and unnaturally (the latter term is important given Catholic concepts of natural law, which have been infiltrated into the American conservative ideological milieu), 2) justify the need for firearms to resist tyrannical governments’ attempts to murder their own citizens under cover of law and justification of medical ethics.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Every general officer/flag officer thinks they can outlast the president and his appointees. And they try to roll every new president.

  103. 103.

    Bill K

    @rikyrah:

    I’ve read this four times. I need someone to explain this bullshyt to me.

    This is the latest outrage du jour of the extreme right. Although Alfie Evans has actually been an issue for over a year in England, it is just getting attention here in the right-wing swamps. Basically he was on life support and the doctors wanted to pull the plug. Sound familiar? First the parents wanted him taken to the US for some experimental treatment. Later they wanted to go to Italy – probably related to the Pope offering to pay expenses. In any case American right-wingers have taken this to exemplify all the evils of centralized government, socialized medicine and gun control. Even I am not sure how they tie gun control into this, but I guess when you’re desperately scrambling for excuses to own an assault rifle, then anything will do.

  105. 105.

    Gin & Tonic

    @geg6:

    what with a $40 one-way ticket from Pittsburgh to Newark on Peoples’ Express

    I vaguely recall a bachelor party somewhere in NJ where our bright idea was to take the drunk-nearly-to-comatose bachelor and put him on a People Express flight to Pittsburgh, with a one-way ticket. Would probably have worked, too, but his brother prevailed on the crowd to show some mercy.

    Should have done it. The marriage was a disaster.

  109. 109.

    debbie

    I moved to NYC in August 1978. I’ll have to look for me when I get back to my laptop.

  112. 112.

    Jager

    @Gravenstone: The picture was taken about 73, there is a family picture taken a year or so later, my brother and sisters and I are dressed in high 70’s style, our parents, the old man in a suit and tie and my mom in a Chanel suit look miserable. It’s the only family picture that was never framed or displayed. I showed it to one of my pals and he sent me his family shot from 76, he and and his brothers look like members of Parliament/Funkadelic, Ray’s old man looks pissed and his mom looks like she’s weeping.

  113. 113.

    Roger Moore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Additionally, they’re only supposed to be moving a skeleton staff from Tel Aviv. The majority of US diplomatic personnel to Israel will remain at Embassy Tel Aviv.

    So we’re getting Potemkin embassy in Jerusalem to satisfy the Christianists while the real work will stay in the current location. Sounds like classic Trump.

  114. 114.

    John Revolta

    Awwwwww shit. I moved to NYC in ’82. When I left 20 some years later I was a different person and the city was a different city.
    But that city and that person still exist somewhere on some level. Damn….

    My bank went broke and my well ran dry
    It was almost enough to contemplate suicide
    I turned on the gas but then I soon realized
    I hadn’t settled my bill so they’d cut off my supply!
    No matter how I try it seems I’m too young to die
    Life goes on………………………………

    R. Davies

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @rikyrah:

    Gish gallop cray-cray trying to crowd as many Ammosexual Apocalyptic and white Privledge fantasies into a single sentence as possible.

  116. 116.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: Correct. But don’t forget we’re also pissing off the Palestinians, which will like lead to some Palestinian extremists doing something stupid that will give Bibi and his cabinet full of miserable, horrible people an excuse to do something terrible in response. With the US’s blessing.

  118. 118.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    But don’t forget we’re also pissing off the Palestinians, which will like lead to some Palestinian extremists doing something stupid

    Was the last time a Palestinian directly targeted an American when one of them killed Robert Kennedy?

  119. 119.

    Shell

    me in bell bottoms

    Remember elephant bell bottoms? I do. Like Nehru jackets, a style that blessedly only lasted about 5 minutes.

  120. 120.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: I’m honestly not sure how you’d parse it. Americans have been killed in Israeli vs Palestinian or Palestinian vs Israeli violence. And I’m not sure if some of those, nor how many, might’ve been purposeful targeting.

  122. 122.

    Spanky

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I’m sure there was some form of airport security as there had been a number of incidents (hijackings to Cuba mostly) already. But I don’t remember what they had.

    I’m gonna tell you a true story.

    When I got married in ’91, my best man and I drove my car from DC to Boston and parked it (with permission) at the hotel my bride and I would be coming to. We then used United tickets in my name and one for “J. E____”, a name of a real person that had become a running joke between the two of us due to, coincidentally, a Plasmatics concert in NYC in ’78 or ’79. A name not remotely like his. Nor was it remotely like my wife’s maiden or married name when she used the same ticket on the return flight to Boston. No one bothered to check against ID.

    Different days. Different times.

  125. 125.

    ruemara

    @rikyrah: Some people still are calling him a liar. Sadly. There is nothing police can’t do that authoritarians won’t claim is justified.

  126. 126.

    Spanky

    @Shell:

    Remember elephant bell bottoms? I do. Like Nehru jackets, a style that blessedly only lasted about 5 minutes.

    Psssst! Hey buddie! Wanna buy a leisure suit? Gen-u-wine doubleknit!

  127. 127.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @The Moar You Know: Actually Alfie Evans is the dead boy, not the father. I was watching the parents’ legal representative on TV last night and surprise surprise he is an American Christian RWNJ Fundamentalist right to lifer. Everything I have read about this case shows that basically the child’s brain is liquid at this point. He will never walk, talk, see, breath on his own, taste, smell, even move. He is dead in every sense of the word and yet his (IMO very, very selfish) parents will not let him go. They have cost the NHS millions, they have cost the legal system millions. The latest idiocy is that their representatives are threatening to take out a private prosecution of the doctors and nurses caring for Alfie to charge them with murder if he dies. It is very sad how the cancer that is the Christian Fundamentalist mindset has managed to infect the entire world.

  129. 129.

    TenguPhule

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    It is very sad how the cancer that is the Christian Fundamentalist mindset has managed to infect the entire world.

    I blame the Romans. They should have stopped that developing cult in its tracks like the rest of them.

  131. 131.

    rikyrah

    This is so sad.

    4-year-old boy is swept out to sea while walking on the Outer Banks with his mom

    Samantha Schmidt

    A 4-year-old boy was walking with his mother in shallow waters on a beach in Kitty Hawk, N.C., on Wednesday afternoon when a wave came crashing onto shore with ferocity.
    The current knocked the family off their feet, ripping the young boy away from his mother and carrying him out to sea. Scouring the water for her son as another wave rushed in, the mother “lost sight of him in the surf,” U.S. Coast Guard officials said. He was gone.

    At about 4 p.m., Coast Guard, police and fire authorities launched a search for the missing boy, who had reportedly been visiting with his family on vacation from their home in Manchester, N.H., police officials told the New Hampshire Union Leader.

    ……………………………

    But on Thursday morning, Johnson wrote that all efforts were “on recovery to offer this family closure.”

    “If you happen upon something at the beach that requires a closer inspection by authorities please limit your communication to 911,” he wrote. “Continued well wishes and calls for peace are welcomed. We will pass all of them along to the family. Please continue to join us in thought and prayer as we mourn with them this tragic loss.”

    The family has not been identified, but police told the Union Leader that the boy was the family’s only child.

    On Thursday morning, a small group of local residents gathered at the beach, arranging shells in the sand in the shape of a heart. It became an impromptu memorial that grew throughout the day as more locals stopped by to pay their respects to the family. “I just wanted to reach out in some way to the parents,” Mary St. Claire Dunstan told reporter Sam Walker, of the Outer Banks Voice. “My heart is breaking for them.”

  132. 132.

    Millard Filmore

    @Patricia Kayden:

    one AR-15 ain’t going to stop them. They have more lethal and powerful weapons than you can ever amass.

    “They want to take you alive.”
    “How do you know?”
    “They haven’t used artillery have they?”

  134. 134.

    Fair Economist

    @TenguPhule:

    And there is no contractor in the world other then Russians who would do all of that

    I think you are on to something!

  135. 135.

    J R in WV

    @geg6:

    Me too. My wife was an elected union officer in a nation-wide local. She spent several months in NYC to help negotiate a new contract when the old one was about to expire. For a plane ticket and the cost of going out we got to be in NYC together.

    The old Times Square was where the union office was, and the negotiations were in a very nice hotel, a conference room and two adjacent rooms for each team. We don’t care for the Disneyfication of Times Square. The old bars, night clubs, even the strip shows and such were more urban. I guess residents didn’t like it, but the NY Times managed to deal with it.

    I still like NYC, there’s culture, jazz nightclubs, Rock ‘n Roll nightclubs and bars, the symphonies, the operas, the museums. And FOOD… the great from all over the world food. Even if Disney is in charge of Times Square. There are other great squares all over the city.

    A neighbor and friend still goes back to NYC periodically, he does the installations at the Guggenheim museum. Started there as a carpenter, worked his way up to head of installations. Retired, but still goes up to begin a new installation 2 or 3 times a year. Imagine that! A hippy from southern West Virginia, doing art installs at the fancy museum! True, tho.

    His wife and he moved back not long ago, she has a complete ceramics workshop in their barn.

  136. 136.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @rikyrah: I can believe that. My family and I were messing around in the water at Topsail decades ago and I (a person who loved being in the water) was hit by a wave that picked me up, tossed me around, and then slammed me into the beach, fracturing my ribs. I never went into the surf more than ankle deep ever again it scared me that much. I cannot imagine what the family is going through.

  137. 137.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    So Tom Brocow likens his encounter with a woman who accuses him a sexual harassment to a “drive by shooting”. The jokes write themselves don’t they?

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    We were in NYC at that time. Two years later leg warmers and those ridiculous headbopper headbands that looked like insect antennae with pom poms at the top were popular. I’d rather spot myself in a 1978 NYC photo than a 1980 one.

  139. 139.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: This is my Shocked, Shocked face.

    The 7 page PDF summary of “findings and recommendations” is laughable by itself.

    (U) Finding#20: Special Counsel Robert Muller indicted Paul Manafort for several charges, none of which relate to allegations of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government.

    (U) Finding #22: General Flynn pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding his December 2016 conversations with Ambassador Kisslyak, even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents did not detect any deception during Flynn’s interview.

    Yada, yada, yada.

    They tried really hard not to see what is plain as day…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Patricia Kayden: There is so much stupid packed in that tweet. For example “who is this pilot who is going to fly a gun waving loon across the Atlantic?” “Why would the Italians allow a gun waving American twat into their country?” “The only reason why the government would stop a mercy flight like what is because your son and some dangerous contagious disease like Ebola so why wouldn’t the US or Italian Air force simply shoot the plane down?”

  142. 142.

    Jager

    @lahke: The ex included a picture from 78, I’d cut my hair, shaved the mustache. I had on a tan 3 piece suit, looked okay, looked like a responsible citizen except I was wearing gradient glasses,the flash made them go ultra dark..The photo was taken at a business dinner and I was the asshole wearing shades. I had a pack of Tareyton 100’s tucked in the watch pocket of my vest too.

  143. 143.

    The Moar You Know

    He is dead in every sense of the word and yet his (IMO very, very selfish) parents will not let him go.

    @Litlebritdifrnt: I strongly suspect in this case, as I always suspected in the Schaivo case, that the parents in each were getting paid a shitload of money on the DL to pursue their claims.

    I hope I’m wrong.

  145. 145.

    Gelfling 545

    @germy: Sure, that would work. No chance that he and possibly son would be shot to smithereens by police. Very realistic scenario.

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    @Fair Economist:

    And didn’t we have a wee bit of trouble when the Soviets built us a brand new embassy in Moscow a couple of decades ago? Full of surveillance devices built into girders and other building materials? Took years to find and destroy most of them, I doubt if they ever found all of them.

    So won’t this old hotel / spiritual symbol of an embassy be just as prone to penetration at all levels?

  147. 147.

    Roger Moore

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I’m sure there was some form of airport security as there had been a number of incidents (hijackings to Cuba mostly) already. But I don’t remember what they had.

    They’ve had xrays and metal detectors for quite a while, but they didn’t used to check tickets until boarding. When you were dropping somebody off or picking them up at the airport, it was routine to go to the gate to hang out with them until boarding or pick them up the moment they got off the plane. That didn’t change until the aftermath of 9/11.

  149. 149.

    Mary G

    @Adam L Silverman: I am not at all sure that I wouldn’t join in, useless as I’d be. It’s been a revelation to me, and I am sorry that it did come as such as a surprise, how many white people I know just pretend like I didn’t say anything to them, changing the subject almost unconsciously, when I talk about this stuff. And they are good liberal vegan Democrat Californians, not Republicans.

    On the subject of Alfie Evans, I haven’t read a lot about it, but why doesn’t the NHS just discharge him for hospice care and let the Pope fly him to Rome? He’s going to die in hospital or out, so why not just let the parents pursue their false hopes if someone other than the government is paying for it.

  152. 152.

    Roger Moore

    @The Moar You Know:

    I strongly suspect in this case, as I always suspected in the Schaivo case, that the parents in each were getting paid a shitload of money on the DL to pursue their claims.

    My guess is that they (and the Schaivos before them) aren’t pocketing anything, but that their expenses are being covered. You don’t have to look that hard to find grieving parents who are unwilling to accept their child is dead and will keep fighting with all their strength to protect that child. If you want to make a big case, all you have to do is find somebody like that and offer to fund their crusade; they don’t need anything more.

  153. 153.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: This is also why I think that Black Americans could make a very good case for being bona fide political refugees if they should chose to do so.

  154. 154.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Excuse me, but what is this fucking “It appears to show”? It does show. It shows two cops mistreating an American citizen for no reason I’ve been able to find. And what’s with that fat white standing inches away and watching?

Comments are closed.