Arguing on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/SPgqQ2hgMY
— Paul Bronks (@BoringEnormous) August 11, 2018
AND WE KNOW WHO TO BLAME…
And to think how much static Jeb Bush had to take for saying "please clap." https://t.co/flLNadDUn3
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 27, 2018
germy
I’m pretty sure his disapproval rate is 52%. I think he got confused.
gene108
@germy:
52% disapproval is still much to low.
Every time I see his approval numbers above 0%, I am disappointed in the American citizenry, who approve of him.
BGinCHI
If we’re really in a simulation or a video game, there’s no way 2018 doesn’t get the high score.
MisterForkbeard
@germy: Yeah. That’s been over the news already. His disapproval was 52%, approval 42%. The other number is his approval within the (shrinking) republican party.
When you dive in, the 2nd tier numbers are awful, too. “Strong Disapprovals” are huge, and he’s slowly losing people from “Strong Approval” to “Approval”.
West of the Rockies
So was this poll a Rasmussen affair with a ten-person sampling?
jl
@gene108: Saw a quote from a news blurb, earlier today (and maybe on this very blog?) from a Trump supporter: “Where does it say in the Constitution that the president needs to be ‘fit for office.”
So, some have completely checked out of common sense.
MisterForkbeard
@gene108: Agreed. It hurts my brain to think that 4 out of 10 americans think this racist idiot is doing a good job.
Look around you. Statistically, 40% of the people nearby you are horrible people, or just extremely clueless.
Baud
@germy: He’s Trump. He’s lying. He like does it all the time.
schrodingers_cat
As a respite from the dysfunctional politics here. I have been listening to comics who take on the messed up political situation in India.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MisterForkbeard: Statistically, half the population has an IQ under 100. That can’t be the whole explanation, but it helps.
I blogged about the advantages I gain by writing fantasy, especially for YA. Like, for instance, I never have to type the words “high school.”
NotMax
Slow to come awake today, so ran a 50s British film on Amazon Prime, “The Vicious Circle.”
If there isn’t already a genre listing for ‘sedate noir,’ there needs to be.
The Moar You Know
Article 4, 25th Amendment.
But not surprised that the True Believers are going there, because he is obviously unfit for office.
Mike in NC
I finally got around to reading “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” over the weekend. Highly depressing to read so much about a probably senile megalomaniac. Sad! At least he was banned from McCain’s funeral at the Naval Academy.
janesays
@West of the Rockies: No, Rasmussen actually has him at 46% Approval, 54% Disapproval today. He was referencing a WSJ/NBC poll released Sunday, except that poll showed him with a 52% Disapproval rating, not 52% Approval. Though he did get the 90% Approval among Republicans right (but not the part about him having the highest approval ratings among Republicans ever).
p.a.
@MisterForkbeard:
Heh. What’ll it take to move these tools to lower it further? Trump shooting someone on 5th Ave… kicking a dog under a moving vehicle… French kissing Ivanka on video?
MagdaInBlack
Geraldo Rivera
✔
@GeraldoRivera
#CindyMcCain is well-qualified & should be appointed to fill Senate seat now vacated by death of hero husband #JohnMcCain
3:04 PM – Aug 26, 2018 · Tennessee, USA
No comment.
dm
Moist appropriate that the “arguing on Twitter” image is an infinite loop.
Betty Cracker
@MisterForkbeard & @gene108: Ditto, comrades. I’m disappointed in my fellow citizens on so many levels it’s dizzying to contemplate them all. I think I always knew a frighteningly large portion of Americans were susceptible to racist, sexist, xenophobic demagoguery. But I did them the enormous credit of imagining it would take someone slick to draw them in. But they fell for this corrupt, idiotic, flailing, cotton candy-haired, bad reality show braggart. He’s such an obvious, low-rent conman. It’s embarrassing.
Brachiator
Trump’s constant yelps for approval are infantile and tiring. Even more tiresome are his supporters and defenders who either ignore this shit or still jump to his defense.
Kelly
@MisterForkbeard: Depends on where you’re at. My rural Oregon Legislative district voted 70/30 Trump so when I look around I know 70% of the people near me are awful.
Yarrow
This part of T’s tweet is so telling:
His insecurity and pathetic need for adulation is just pathetic. It can also be read two ways: “favorite (I hope)” or “(I hope ) President.” He is not feeling confident about staying President.
germy
@MisterForkbeard:
and not much to look at.
Gin & Tonic
@MagdaInBlack: So, in other words, she’s over 30 years old and has been a US citizen for nine years.
The Moar You Know
@p.a.: Nothing will. NOTHING. He is Cleek’s Law embodied and that’s what all his fans have been praying for, praying for it as long as I’ve been alive. Reagan did it respectably, but they never wanted respectable. They wanted someone who would straight up say “fuck you” to everyone they hate and they finally have that guy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And Bannon was supposed to the Self Servericer in the White House?
Gin & Tonic
@germy: I’ve always gone on the assumption that at least 60% of the people around me are fucking morons.
No, I don’t have a lot of friends, why do you ask?
germy
Here’s the WaPo headline describing the Florida shooter:
Somewhere out there a maladjusted, hostile and potentially violent gamer is feeling envious of the publicity.
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker:
He tapped directly in to the lizard brain, Betty.
Yarrow
Well, here’s the Village take on FlagGate.
VOR
@The Moar You Know: Yep. They wanted a huge asshole who would piss off the Libs by “telling it as it is”. They got what they wanted.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Did you see the nice big article about increasingly violent young men in India at Wapo yet?
JWL
What’s really funny is that Jeb! will always be reduced to asking that of any audience. Or leastwise, he would in an honest world. He always was achingly boring, of course, but it’s pretty obvious no one had their heart to tell the next president of the United States that he was as dull as dishwater. He had to find out the hard way, and did so in humiliating fashion. It was great. In fact, put a gun to my head and force me to say something complimentary about Trump, and that would be it. That is, chasing the Boring Weasel out of the 2016 race and back to Florida. I tend to think Terry Schiavo would concur, too, may she R.I.P.
*(Boring Weasel, son of Tall Hyena)
germy
@Gin & Tonic:
trollhattan
@janesays:
Trump to cabinet: “Dis approval is great, dey really LOVE me!”
Betty Cracker
@Kelly: Now I feel lucky — only 61% of the people around me are assholes.
Yarrow
Of course she is. Was Trump’s donation to her ever investigated?
germy
@Yarrow: i wouldn’t worry. Those American Legion guys are usually quick to forgive and forget. /
eric
@germy: less pressure, less money, and less competitive that professional sports, and I cant think of a time that any of the “thugs” have shot opponents on the field.
that is utter crap. try being a lawyer.
This guy had issues that had nothing to do with gaming. Suggesting that gaming in any way “caused” this is excuse making.
Thoughtful David
@MagdaInBlack: Wow. I didn’t know Geraldo Rivera was still alive.
TenguPhule
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Hah! Just wait till the isekai fad hits American writing.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: No. Link?
Sister Golden Bear
Reposting from Sunday’s open thread for the jackals who actually have lives on the weekend… ?
Thank you to those who’ve been asking about my recovery (from genital reassignment surgery).
Things are going OK. It’s a tough recovery (my surgeon in Thailand uses a much more advanced method than used in the States and is very upfront that the recovery is twice as long and twice as hard).
Nerve re-awaking isn’t fun, and I’m not getting enough sleep because the painkillers don’t last through the night.
Scar contacture is definitely kicking in, and the only way to counteract is to actually dilate more. So upped dilation to 4x/day, which takes up 5+ hours daily.
Fortunately months 2 and 3 post-op are the worst and then it should get better. In the meantime I’m just embracing the suck.
FYI, for those who want to know more, my nym links to my blog, where I’ve been chronicaling my gender transition for the past couple years.
randy khan
@West of the Rockies:
And still they somehow came out with 52%.
(As noted above, apparently Mr. Trump is suffering from poll dyxlexia, and confused the approve and disapprove numbers.)
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Words to live by.
TenguPhule
@eric:
Seeing what that has already done to the lawyers here, I’ll pass, thanks.
trollhattan
@MagdaInBlack:
Will nobody think of poor Meghan? She needs a real job.
My secret wish is Cindy gets appointed and turns out to be a closet liberal. Would serve them right.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: ‘We don’t have any fear’: India’s angry young men and its lynch mob crisis
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
Sadly, she’s a Republican tramp.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear: Ouch. Remind me never to have one of those.
Betty Cracker
@JWL: True! The only upside of Trump is that he attacks and humiliates fellow Awful People sometimes. I’ve enjoyed Trump’s harassment of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions immensely (while at the same time being horrified by the blatant attempts at obstruction, of course). It was grimly satisfying to see Trump curb stomp the unbearable Ted Cruz…and Cruz crawl back to lick Trump’s dainty wingtips after Trump called him “Lyin’ Ted,” retweeted a meme implying that Cruz’s wife is ugly and accused Cruz’s dad of assassinating JFK. If anyone on earth deserves that humiliation, it’s Ted Fucking Cruz.
Brachiator
From John McCain’s Farewell Letter to the country:
Fuck Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Old news. Modi’s party has been steadily losing Loksabha seats in the by-elections. His party needs to be defeated in 2019. Unfortunately, the opposition is fragmented and weak. We shall see what happens. RSS is poison and their chief stooge is poison.
Citizen Alan
@TenguPhule:
Probably, but perhaps she hates Shitgibbon more than she loves tax cuts.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: Sorry, his words ring empty with his vote to cut taxes for the rich and fuck up our government still fresh,
Kelly
@Betty Cracker: I have the comfort of knowing my local assholes are out voted by the commies in the Oregon’s cities and for some reason the rural north coast.
Gelfling 545
@West of the Rockies: Maybe he polled his family members. Some liked him, others not so much.
TenguPhule
@Citizen Alan:
Alas, this appears not to be the case. Tax cuts are the one true savior.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
The look on his face when he sat with RMoney for dinner!
What is the term for when cinematographers purposely light an actor from below so that shadows cast upwards on his face? The effect is to make the character look like pure evil.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Is the part where they’re organizing and training the angry young men to violence just Wapo clickbait or is this a new problem on the horizon?
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
60%?
Optimist.
;)
Gelfling 545
@MisterForkbeard: Or just can’t admit they were wrong.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: India is fighting for its soul just like the United States is. Modi and his junta is getting push back but whether that will be enough to change the balance of power in Delhi in 2019 remains to be seen.
delk
Just had a post that did not post. FYWP probably did not like my link.
Robert Sneddon
@TenguPhule: There’s already quite a bit of English-language isekai out there but it’s nothing compared to the Japanese tsunami of really bad wish-fulfillment stories as chronicled in Syoetsu, never mind the rising tide of Chinese cultivation stories also appearing on the web.
germy
@Brachiator:
“McCain surrounded himself with some strange people.”
– Sarah Palin
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: The problem with competitive computer gaming is it has all the negatives of a real competitive sport with the stress and flight or fight reaction but none of the positives of a real sport with physical activity to burn it off. End result is a lot of frustration and anger among the players.
My observation is even worse, people will get addicted to the rage that comes with it because calming done ends up physically painful.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Click bait and not new. RSS, the mother organization of Modi’s BJP is close to a 100 years old.
Doug R
@TenguPhule: 37,000,000 more men than women-sounds like India has been building a nation of incels for a while.
Tokyokie
@eric:
Sort of like 30 years ago, when Dungeons & Dragons was supposedly causing maladjusted young people to commit suicide.
schrodingers_cat
@Doug R: The problem is not national but regional (northern India to be specific)
Redshift
@randy khan: Nah, he just made it up. As Steve Benen documented this morning, there are numerous instances of Trump declaring that you need to add anywhere from 6 to 12 percentage points to get his “real” popularity, because he knows there are supporters who don’t want to identify to pollsters.
It does seem significant that he’s no longer satisfied with cherry-picking from Rasmussen or whatever no-name “pollster” they’re flogging on Fox&Friends.
JPL
@germy: hahahahahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahaahahhaha
He sure did Sarah.
TenguPhule
@Tokyokie:
Devil worship.
Suicide was listening to rock and roll and heavy metal.
Doug R
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Something to be said for the omnidirectional treadmill in Ready Player One.
germy
@Gelfling 545:
You keep Glenn Greenwald out of this.
JPL
I love that video, and all the front pagers should use it from time to time.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Have you seen one of those SK SC II tournaments? Hot hand and wrist action aplenty there.
Anotherlurker
@germy: I knew an old DP who refered to it as “Mysterioso”. However, I’m unsure that there is a proper, formal term.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I still prefer RSS to Twitter.
Redshift
@TenguPhule: Things weren’t nearly that neat. There was hysterical about suicides supposedly “caused” by both D&D and heavy metal.
germy
@Anotherlurker: I keep thinking “Frankenstein Flash” but that can’t be it.
Roger Moore
@p.a.:
My gut feeling is that as long as he’s on the defensive, his numbers with his base will slide. They may not slide very fast, and they can bounce back when he gets a respite, but looking like Mueller has his balls in a vice hurts him with his base.
Baud
@germy: Ha. I just read about that at LGM. I’m glad our front pagers don’t spend too much time on him, but I’m also glad there are people who do, lest he go unanswered and be taken seriously.
Doug R
@schrodingers_cat: North, as in near Pakistan?
Tokyokie
@TenguPhule: Damn. I’m always getting those confused!
Fleeting Expletive
We shouldn’t minimize the import of the half-mast flag flap. This was a big deal in that, an emotional demand from T was thwarted by not only veterans and everybody else. It was also a good case where Norms are demanded to be upheld and the Big Baby in Charge didn’t get his way. It’s entirely personal, his feud with McCain, everybody knows it. He’s pissed now, all pouty–that isn’t a good thing, of course, but he’s been sent to bed without his two scoops.
As was memorably said by swaggering Republicans in 1998 about President Clinton “it proved this guy can be rolled.” Can’t remember who and don’t care to look it up, but at the time it seemed thuggish. The need to checkmate the current nonsense is vastly more honorable. Norms can hold, and have to.
Was the decider in this Mattis or Kelly, I wonder.
TenguPhule
@Redshift:
/checks notes
I thought that one was they were worried we’d become murderous psychopaths who’d been taught by D&D to kill and loot our victims?
I honestly do not recall suicide being one of those things Congress and the Moral Majority were determined to condemn D&D for, and that list was quite long.
Anotherlurker
@Anotherlurker: I have also used the term “uplighting” for this look. However, “uplighting” can be used in multiple Film, TV and Theater lighting situations.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: What always bothered me about Trump is that he was so obviously awful and lying. I used to blink when journalists described him as “charismatic” in his speeches. He’s not – he’s just a slimy used car salesmen or con-man, telling obvious untruths to get you to feel better about yourself and overpay for that convertible.
He’s the very definition of untrustworthy and useless, but Republicans love him. Because he’s a Republican and they think he makes liberals angry, I guess. That’s more important to them than the rule of law, ethics, foreign policy, international respect, the economy, healthcare, etc. He just needs to be offensive and a Republican and that’s all they want.
Anotherlurker
@germy: I’ll check with a friend who is a Lighting Designer, later this evening, to see if she has any thoughts on the term..
NotMax
@Tokyokie
Mazes and Monsters. Not Tom Hanks’ finest moment.
TenguPhule
@MisterForkbeard:
High Intelligence and Wisdom give you a +5 to save against Charm Person and Delusion, respectively.
burnspbesq
@trollhattan:
A USC TriDelt?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
And I’m not sure which is more reprehensible.
germy
@Anotherlurker: The technique was used for “Bad Kirk” in the old Star Trek episodes where he splits into two people.
It was used in old Universal monster movies. I think I saw it in some old noir films.
Trump’s dinner with Romney, his face is pure Bad Kirk.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard: Agree. He put the lie to the idea that the rubes were being fooled by the GOP.
Montanareddog
@TenguPhule: Demographers have been warning for a couple of decades that the cultural preference for sons in India and China, and the availability of sex-selective abortion, would lead to a dangerous gender imbalance. One of the consequences was predicted to be an increase in gang or gang-like violence.
MisterForkbeard
@Gelfling 545: That too. But the thing about that is while they might benefit from dems/liberals/decent people just welcoming them back into the fold with no recriminations (this might actually let them vote Dem, or at least back off from Trump support)… it’s objectively the wrong thing to do.
If someone is out there today saying “Man, I love what Trump is doing separating and jailing those immigrant kids” they kinda DO need to publicly repent that before they’re welcomed back to society at large.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
McCain was wrong about a lot of things. Trump is wrong and mean-spirited, petty and vindictive about everything.
I like that McCain said that he had the privilege to lose to Obama. The contrast with Trump is staggering. Doesn’t ring empty to me. Rings as a rebuke to Trump and those who follow him. I don’t know whether they will listen, but increasingly people are having to choose which side they will be on. McCain, with all his wrong choices, saw this clearly, and took time while he was dying to express his hope that the rest of us choose more wisely.
@germy:
Now there’s a person totally lacking in self-awareness.
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: It does separate the women from the boys. \\
Yarrow
@trollhattan:
She wouldn’t be a closet liberal but she might be a “Fuck you Traitor-in-Chief and all the rest of the Republican traitors” Senator in her votes. They’ve sold out the country to Russia and the traitor in the WH has disrespected her husband. She can’t be happy about the second one and her husband wasn’t happy about the first. I can see her taking revenge for both through her votes.
bemused
@Gelfling 545:
That and what are they gonna do with their raging resentments if they turn against trumpism? They’d have to quickly find some other targets to blame because they’ll never give up their endless grievances.
trollhattan
@burnspbesq:
Buried the lede: BEER HEIRESS!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
Sully, while being mostly a good movie about an inspiring real life event was not a great Tom Hanks moment. The movie had to make the government an antagonist when it wasn’t the case.
bemused
@JPL:
McCain must have kicked himself for picking Palin. Only after he lost though.
germy
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Isn’t that Clint Eastwood’s worldview? The more accurate script probably wouldn’t have interested him enough to direct it.
Yarrow
Saw this last night:
Murdoch is a cancer on democracy around the world.
MisterForkbeard
@TenguPhule: I always wondered about the judgment of anyone who thought Trump was competent. He was obviously incompetent at every turn, couldn’t explain his own policies and basically was just angry at whoever the enemy of the minute was (plus Hillary and Mexicans). That’s apparently enough to pass for “wise” in Republican circles, but… seriously, he was like every seamy used car salesmen in every bad movie ever. How is this hard to see? What do you have to contort within yourself to see him as an upstanding businessman who really knows his shit?
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Nope, I remember the suicides scare, too. Because D&D was the entryway to devil worship and demonic possession, and demonic possession led directly to suicide. QED.
MisterForkbeard
@Sister Golden Bear: I feel like you’ve been waiting YEARS to use that joke. :)
As an aside, I haven’t commented on it much but I really do appreciate the total honesty you’ve had about your procedure here. It’s *good* for the rest of us to know how this works and what you’re willing to go through – it certainly makes the entire concept more real. So thank you – and good luck pushing through the pain.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
He’s who they aspire to be. That’s why they support him. You see who he is, they see who they want to be.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
Sadly, it’s much more likely that she would be yet another lock-step Republican, perhaps with a dash of Susan Collins-style oh, my conscience twinged a bit, but I have to stick with what my party tells me to do.
bemused
@MisterForkbeard:
That’s just what I’ve been thinking about all those republicans who have gotten punked by Sacha Baron Cohen recently.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
So strap him down and bombard him with lethal doses of radiation as the cure?
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
A recent poll suggests that Trump is rock steady with his base.
I can’t find the link, but another story noted that one poll had deliberately included people surveyed after the Manafort and Cohen verdicts and pleas.
A recent CNN story notes:
Much will depend on those who are tired and sickened on Trump, and hopefully on people who may not like him but are politically lazy getting more engaged.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@eric:
I don’t know, my experience as a game moderator begs to differ. I know for a fact there isn’t that my real violence between my players because they don’t know were the other guy is in real life. That being said there are lest three different murder plots I know of in my cheesy little game, I can not image what a room full of computer gamers would be like.
Money doesn’t have anything to do with this, a lot of game players Walter Mitty themselves in these games and go nuts having that power fantasy undermined. I just assumed this guy in Florida shot up the room because he lost, so that means everyone else was cheater in fine gamer logic because he is a pro and there are all newbs.
TenguPhule
@MisterForkbeard:
Maybe a wizard did it? I mean, we’ve ruled out practically everything else, maybe its actual magic at fault here.
A Ghost To Most
Per Ari Melber, Manafort seeking plea deal on DC trial.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
His lack of confidence is inspiring.
I mean, I’ve always liked my “leaders” to be masses of jello and shit in equal proportions.
Just in case it’s not clear//
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@MisterForkbeard:
Hatred of the libtards and the coloreds
TenguPhule
@A Ghost To Most:
Prison or Death by Russians. Manafort wisely chose prison.
MagdaInBlack
@MisterForkbeard:
The Trump supporters with whom I each and every working day, are not the insane looking ones you see at his rallies or read about in interviews. These people really have no knowledge of, or interest in civic, government, policy or politics. Their only knowledge comes from what they are told by whichever tv channel they favor.
They are not steeped in it like most of us here, nor do they wish to be. Quite frankly, politics/govt/civics bore hell out of them.
Trump makes broad statements and accusations and claims and because this man speaks to them in words they understand ( not policy full of big words ) in blunt brash to the gut statements, they nod and agree. They dont know more than what theyre told.
He’s a Republican, and he isn’t one of ” them slick talkin’ big word know-it-alls”
The majority of his supporters are just sheep.
Really stupid sheep.
Yarrow
@MisterForkbeard:
They see he’s a racist who will Make American Great for White People Again and nothing else matters.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
The Brits did a ton of those in the 1950s. I’ve seen them because they tend to star James Donald, my favorite actor. Sometimes they’re pretty good!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@germy:
I think it was Eastwood’s movie. Christ, that guy talked to an empty chair on live television. He was so tone deaf that it never occurred to him he would come off an senile.
Immanentize
@germy: thank you for that quote for an unobviius reason — my father always used to quote that — mostly the first part, but never gave attribution. So, family quote mystery solved!
Baud
@Brachiator: I vaguely recall hearing something about how summer polls always favor Republicans. FWIW.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Oh, man, can’t go wrong with John Mills, Wilfrid Hyde-White, and Lionel Jeffries.
Ruckus
@Thoughtful David:
I thought, or maybe it was hoped, that GR got stuck in the last safe he opened and his crew just walked off chuckling to themselves.
MagdaInBlack
And please add “spend ” after “whom.”
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, couldn’t it at least have been someone as cute as Dead Zone-era Martin Sheen?
NotMax
@A Ghost To Most
Unsurprising. Last card of any worth left to play before sentencing on the concluded trial.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: Fuck McCain.
The guy was a duplicitous sack of crap who talked moderate and voted 100% Nazi.
Damn if I will sit here and give him props for being some kind of high-minded party-transcending saint when he was just another card-carrying member of the American Fascist Party.
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
Damage? What damage?
Mnemosyne
@MisterForkbeard:
In addition to what everyone else said, I think there’s a large minority of his fans who enjoy that Trump is shitting on the entire country and no one can stop him. It’s like a “Three Stooges” short on the world’s biggest stage, and the rest of us are the hapless snobbish victims of the anarchy.
A Ghost To Most
@TenguPhule:
They are not mutually exclusive.
zhena gogolia
@Thoughtful David:
He’s in Al Capone’s vault.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
Damage to the Republican Party, I’m guessing. It’s the only kind of damage they recognize.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear:
I hope it all goes well and eventually you will be grateful you did it!
MagdaInBlack
@MagdaInBlack:
….eta…. They dont believe themselves to be racist because ” How is it racist to state a ‘fact'”
I just report it….
Brachiator
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I think the “government as antagonist shit is overblown.” At almost every point, the movie demonstrated that teamwork, as much as individual heroism, was required to save people. And the teamwork was based on government mandated standards, not Randian effusions of lone wolf magic.
But I agree that Eastwood’s choices stepped on the story instead of elevating it.
MomSense
I’ve been laughing with my mom. She went to the Cape to see some dear friends and to reconnect with some colleagues she hasn’t seen in 40 years. Of course I wanted to see all the photos of this reunion. There were about 30 photos of her friend’s golden retriever and maybe two of her friends.
All she can talk about is Duncan the golden.
zhena gogolia
@Anotherlurker:
Putting a flashlight under your chin at Halloween?
debbie
Did you know Bronks got death threats for one of his videos and left Twitter for a couple days?
This was the <a href="
“>”offensive” tweet, and this is <a href="
“>a screenshot of the death threat.
People are idiots.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
I have trouble blaming this on Hanks. He’s just an actor.
MomSense
@JWL:
What a fucking couple of years it has been. I can’t remember why we add the ! to Jed!
debbie
@Fleeting Expletive:
One of my FB friends is a very conservative Southerner. Even she’s ticked off about that childish move.
Yarrow
Calling Kay and other Ohio residents!
Related to payday lending.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
I believe that was his campaign’s (sincere) exclamation point.
Chyron HR
@A Ghost To Most:
The fuck, you asshole? You let your CPA’s life get destroyed in court and NOW you’re pleading guilty?
Citizen Alan
@Redshift:
In the legendary Jack Chick tract “Dark Dungeons,” a girl hanged herself in grief because her thief character Black Leaf got killed. Or perhaps bitterness that the other girl in the tract, an 8th level cleric, couldn’t be buggered to cast Cure Poison.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Some of Trump’s numbers, and the steady support of his base, has not often been seem to the same extent in other polls.
I found my link to the earlier NBC poll story. Some stuff I think is just noise:
I don’t believe that the average voter thinks about, or compares Pelosi to Trump. Hell, I don’t think that a lot of voters even know what Pelosi does unless they are prompted.
OTOH, I did find this interesting.
I’d like to see Democrats continue to convince people that the midterms matter, that you want a one-two punch in 2018 and 2020, to get rid of Trump and the Republicans.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
His base will stick with him because he pisses off everyone else. As I answered to Betty, that’s who they want to be, and he is their microphone if they can’t have that. His base wants the government that he wants. Or at least they think they do. They wouldn’t like it any more than we would. But they do deserve it.
debbie
@Yarrow:
Rosenberger makes Tom Noe look like a real amateur.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: The exclamation point really bothered me, and I doubt that I’m alone.
geg6
@MomSense:
Because he did. It was on his signage.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
That’s so lame. My god how the hell do we lose to these people?
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Sister Golden Bear: Very late to the party, me…thank you for sharing your story, and good wishes for continued healing.
Ladyraxterinok
@bemused: He did several thing duringl campaign that were weird, eg cutting out to DC and skipping Letterman thinking doing so would help stop economic disaster.
My suspicion now and after election is that he wanted to lose (he realized the problems couldn’t be solved with a simple ‘bomb, bomb Iran?) and that’s why he picked Palin. Or he thought he’d win no matter what and could therefore pick any dummie for veep.
IMO many GOP voters looked at his age and her obvious incompetance and said no way.
Then maybe in remorse for allowing one of ‘them’ to become president they voted for an even more obvious incopetant to protect from an even worse ‘other’, a woman!
Dan B
@germy: Bad, bad, bad of you! I startled the kitteh who is in the cone of shame from his visit to the vet. Poor kitteh, got bitten by something, prolly giant mouse.
Gelfling 545
@trollhattan: well, she is pro choice.
Citizen Alan
@NotMax:
My mother forced me to watch Mazes and Monsters. Twice. Then, she confiscated my first edition D&D books that would be worth hundreds of dollars today if in good condition.
I never had the heart to tell her that by for the last 15 years or so, I’ve been a freelance writer for games like Vampire: The Masquerade that make D&D seem like something little kids would play in Sunday School.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Even if a lot of the people who voted for Trump MIGHT have increasing misgivings about the guy, and would admit it in private to a friend, a huge chunk is never, ever, ever, EVER going to admit it to a pollster. They know that’s what the pollster wants to hear. They know that’s what the news wants the story to be. They’re going to withhold the satisfaction of saying it.
BTW, wasn’t the nym sticking supposed to have been worked out by now? I keep having to reenter mine.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
I’ve always assumed that the fears of D&D were a case of massively overblown projection by Chick and other evangelicals, all of whom have an extremely hard time distinguishing between fact and fiction. They’re like a malevolent version of the aliens in Galaxy Quest.
debbie
@Ladyraxterinok:
McCain’s excuse was the financial crisis, but he in fact ditched Letterman to appear on a live interview with Katie Couric. That’s why Dave was so pissed off.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
They cheat.
Gelfling 545
@Gelfling 545: And probably anti Trump by now.
zhena gogolia
@Gelfling 545:
Something wafted across my peripheral vision to the effect that she might help stop Kavanaugh.
Cermet
@schrodingers_cat: And running out of time for India due to its proximity to the equator and vast nearby warm waters; AGW will strike India about as hard as anywhere and a billion people will find their homes unendurable hot and humid in summers – such that no human can survive the heat; even at night. As those days approach and start to be a consistent reality over the next thirty years (and get much worse for another twenty), I do not understand how that country and region will handle that disaster. And we can thank the West and especially right-wing amerikans for this gift of this slow acting world wide disaster in the making. This terrible event is as surely coming as the sun will rise in the East.
Baud
@Brachiator: The media will push the Pelosi angle so hard. Too bad so many on our side fall for that shit every time.
Baud
@MomSense:
You’re out of the Baud! administration!
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I disagree with this. Trump supporters want to change the world. They don’t care who is pissed. Or hurt.
I very much agree with this. Over the weekend, I ran across a clip of Trump voters enthusiastically pointing to their own heads and nodding and noting that Trump thought exactly as they do, and said the things that they wanted to say exactly as they would want to say it.
This was early in the campaign. A lot of these people did not come off as evil, more as extremely selfish and short-sighted. Some, I think, honestly believe that if Santa Trump satisfied their dreams, everyone would win. But increasingly these people are blind to the damage that Trump causes. And they keep inventing fantasies to justify their delusion. I have heard some people say that if only Mueller and the Democrats would lay off Trump, he would be able to concentrate and do all the wonderful stuff he has promised. Trump himself is blameless. This blind faith is sick and may come back to hurt us big time.
Trump is evil and incompetent. Look how the wheels are coming off his stupid North Korea adventure. And yet not only do his supporters still back him on this, conservative pundits who supposedly are hard-headed and objective instead strain to kiss Trump’s ass and justify clear policy failures. Again, the end result doesn’t just piss us off, it makes the world less safe.
MoCA Ace
@p.a.:
No, No, and Ewwww but still no
Citizen Alan
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve toyed with the idea that the reason fundies hate D&D and Harry Potter so much is that their extremist view of biblical literalism renders them incapable of recognizing metaphor in any context. If the magic in D&D and Harry Potter isn’t “real,” then maybe the stories about Jesus aren’t real. But if you even consider that option, then you’re going to hell, so best just to acept everything at face value.
Elizabelle
I resemble those corgis. Great video.
L85NJGT
@Redshift:
You forgot daycare child abuse hysteria.
I’m cynical enough to think a lot of this comes from church leaders seeing their attendance & revenue streams drying up. The big box evangelical shops around here are teen centers, daycare, and have an awful lot tied up in audio visual stage production.
The church designs and materials are now are all garbage – they’re just flipping suburban tracts, so why bother?
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
An evangelical unable to distinguish between fact and fiction? How could that possibly be? Don’t they deal in absolute truth? Can it possibly be that they don’t actually believe the crap that comes out of their mouths?
MoCA Ace
@p.a.:
If I dare channel the Trump supporter hear abouts….
Fukin New York liberal probably deserved it,,, bullets cost money… Hot!!
JPL
CBS just reported that the gunman in the Jacksonville shooting was hospitalized twice for mental illness. Of course he was because he’s white and could afford hospitalization.
debbie
@JPL:
AND could legally purchase guns.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
When God does it, it’s performing miracles.
When Satan does it, it’s performing magic.
;)
MisterForkbeard
@A Ghost To Most: If true, that’s great news and also likely to set Trump off again.
We’ll see what he gives up and if he can reach a deal that Mueller is happy with.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
Fred Clark at Slacktivist has talked about that a lot and he does think that many evangelicals have a fiction problem. They have to believe that everything they read — even, say, “Left Behind” or the Narnia books — is literally true or else it calls everything else into question.
As problematic as the Catholic Church is (and I left them behind long ago), I’m at least glad I was raised in a religious tradition that considers the Bible to be a collection of stories and metaphors, not literal truths and factual events. It makes it much easier to sort out fact and fiction when I don’t have to be distracted by defending creation as being a literal event that happened in exactly seven consecutive 24-hour days.
MomSense
@Baud:
You can’t quit me. I’m your only Superpac.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
McCain strikes me as a guy who fucked up a lot, but who tried to stumble in the direction of doing the right thing.
I listened to an interview in which he admitted that he lied about the meaning of the Confederate flag in North or South Carolina, but then later went back in person to apologize. Fucked up. Very fucked up. Shitty and cowardly. But I still give him more props than all the other little shits who do nothing or who actively embrace bigotry.
As always, your mileage may vary.
A Ghost To Most
@Cermet: If so, large amounts of people will head north. Russia will find itself inundated with refugees. That ought to shake things up. The same thing could happen in the Western hemisphere.
Good times.
Ladyraxterinok
@MagdaInBlack: Acquaintace said ‘I proudly admit it–I’m a racist,’ IMHO he said this to preempt the charge. He ‘knew’ people would say he was a racist just because he told the truth (‘blacks have very low IQ, are all thugs and crooks, and must be rigidly controlled if they are permitted to live in a civilized society’). He’s said all those things and worse.
He made this admission in the course of defending his support of Trump.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Narnia? Now I’m really confused because that is clearly fiction
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia:
Have you ever seen Badlands?
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
The scariest ones are the ones who really do believe every word that comes out of their mouths, including the ones that contradict each other. Watching someone flip their supposedly deep-seated belief on a dime is quite disconcerting.
JPL
@JPL: Not that Left Behind isn’t but I avoided knowing anything about that series.
Steeplejack
Looks like the “content delivery network” might be the source of slowdowns that readers are experiencing this afternoon. I just got on the computer a while ago and refreshed five or six other BJ tabs, and they’re all straining mightily and at length with StackpathCDN.
(My anecdata memory from a few weeks ago is that once StackpathCDN feels itself properly updated it goes dormant for a good while.)
Kathleen
@Yarrow: Thank you! I see my beloved (snark) Cincinnati Enquirer is front and center with reporting this scandal (more snark).
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Isn’t part A sort of the same thing?
They don’t have the power to piss off everyone who isn’t them, shitgibbon does have it and he does piss them off. By trying to have the government that they want. They know that will piss off everyone else. That may not be their sole motivation, pissing everyone else off, but it is a bonus for them. Or maybe I’m reading too much into the shitgibbon fan at work.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Okay, this page loaded quickly, now that the other tabs have finished with Stackpath.
A Ghost To Most
@Citizen Alan:
Yeah, no. Time to call lies lies. Big or small.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
That’s about where I am.
MagdaInBlack
@Citizen Alan:
They believe in magic, and any magic performed not in the name of God, or by God, comes from Satan, the great deceiver. (Not to he confused with trump)
Also, those books and games will give children the idea that other forms of magic are acceptable. They will be seduced.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
No, but I bet he was cute in it.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
It’s clear to people who understand that fiction is a thing, but there are some evangelicals who think it was all factual and Lewis just had to present it as fiction to get it past the skeptics. ?
Yes, those are scary people. That’s my point.
And I haven’t even gotten started on the fact that many of these people have been gaslighted their whole lives and told that they didn’t really see what they saw. Of course your father wasn’t drunk last night — we’re Baptists, we don’t drink! And this black eye is because I ran into a door in the dark. You imagined the whole thing.
MisterForkbeard
@MisterForkbeard: Having read the article (over at Digby’s, I think) it seems clear that Manafort ISN’T plea dealing yet. He tried, but couldn’t meet some objections from Mueller so the plea hasn’t gone through.
The fact that he’s trying to get a plea deal is big, though. And it explains Trump suddenly talking about pardoning Manafort.
Baud
@MomSense: Fine. But don’t mock The E Point!
jl
@Baud: ” You’re out of the Baud! administration! ”
The exclamation point in ‘Baud 2020!’ is sincere? Since when?
I feel betrayed. I am betrayed!
Jay
@A Ghost To Most:
There’s a few mountains and heavily armed warzones in the way.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
Cute in a scary, murderous way. Though Sissy Spacek holds her own as someone who’s murderousness is a little more low-key.
MomSense
@Baud:
In Baud! We Trust!
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: 1973, so you do the math. Perhaps my all-time favorite American film.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Argh. Whose, not who’s.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Oh, that’s the Malick serial-killer film. I saw five minutes of it on TCM a few weeks ago. Too scary for me. But yeah, he was at peak cuteness then.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
From the google search for their website:
I italicized that one word in there. They seemed to have lied.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
No. I think that SOME (not all) of the people who keep saying that conservatives just want to piss off liberals are people who think that politics are a game, and that in the end, they would be unaffected by what the GOP does.
The Trump administration and Trump in particular enjoys hurting people. And the Trump true believers want to change the world. They think they can return the world to a simpler time when white men were in charge and when everyone else shut the fuck up. They also believe that by ignoring the reality of pollution, climate change, realistic foreign policy, everything will be hunky dory.
The world don’t work that way. And a real authoritarian government will also end up slapping the shit out of people who think that they will be untouched by bigotry, stupidity or madness. Being pissed off will be the least of their worries.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
Technically, they were spree killers — it was based on Charles Starkweather and Caril Anne Fugate’s case (I double checked Wikipedia to get the names right). I’m not a big Malick fan, myself, so I only got about half an hour into it.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: It’s worth watching in its entirety. Not really “scary” IMO – and uses Orff’s O Fortuna really well.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Badlands had a cold beauty. But I will fight you on the greatness of “Days of Heaven.”
I don’t like much of his later work.
Elizabelle
Some good news. Kevin Clark (director, Clerks, etc.) has lost 51 pounds since surviving his “widowmaker” heart attack. He’s gone vegetarian. (Delish.com link)
Credits Penn Gillette with his dietary strategy. Gillette ate only potatoes the first two weeks of his weight loss work; he is now a vegetarian who loves eating blueberries doused with cayenne and cocoa powder. And dryroasted peanuts with tabasco sauce. He gave an interesting interview to Grub Street.
Gillette: “You may notice throughout this diet that there’s no alcohol. I’ve never had a sip of the stuff, or a recreational drug, or caffeine. I’m essentially just a Mormon, except for the no-god thing.”
I do like my red wine. But vegetarian sounds good. And it would be helpful to really shake up your eating rituals. I’ve seen friends IRL do very well with vegetarian and approaching vegan diets.
Dan B
@A Ghost To Most: And Southerners will arrive in a burning Seattle, move to BC and find it worse. Northern Canada, like Siberia, is becoming fires and collapsing permafrost because it’s warming four times faster than the equatorial regions. There won’t be any escape for India or any other region.
Despite the horrible toxic smoke in Seattle there were still people insisting that it was the fault of “government”.
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: Days of Heaven suffers because of people confusing it with Heaven’s Gate, I think.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I feel about Malick pretty much the same way that I do about Kubrick — I can recognize the artistry, but I don’t like the resulting movies very much. I would rather watch Max Ophuls than Malick. Just personal taste.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I think we are talking past each other. We really aren’t disagreeing, we just maybe have a slightly differing take on pissing off. I’m using it here like the saying “Piss Off!” I think you are saying they want people they don’t like to be mad and not be able to do anything about it except accept it. We are saying the same thing in different ways. Like I said it’s not their rational, it’s a bonus. They really are pissed that the world isn’t what they think it should be and they are pissed at the people who changed it and want to continue to change it, who even elected a black man to be president. Here is their chance to take it all back, the last 60 yrs and piss off the people that took away the life they think we should all have.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Two of my friends are doing well on a vegan diet: she has a strong family history of type 2 diabetes and he has one of heart disease. Both of their numbers are much better now.
The most recent consensus I’ve heard is that a pescetarian diet is best, essentially vegan plus fish for the omega-3s. But I don’t like the taste of fish. ?♀️
Gelfling 545
I’m thinking that Manafort may have waited a bit too long to try for a deal. I guess 8 convictions changed things a bit.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I love fish. And eggs. And cheese (although not every variety of cheese.)
But way more vegetarian would be good. I have a few Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks. Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines do vegetarian cuisine spectacularly.
hilts
@Gin & Tonic: @Brachiator:
Say what you will about Malick, but Days of Heaven has some of the most stunning, breathtaking cinematography I’ve ever seen.as well as this exquisite piece of music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyFpZ5MZ7kk
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
That’s what I’ve always thought as well. That an autocratic government, often through ineptitude, but also through the machinations of individuals in positions of power, will eventually go after those who don’t tow the party line at all times.
You piss off the wrong person, prepare to be disappeared. Trump, or whoever is Dear Leader at the time, won’t give a shit how loyal you were. It won’t reach his attention more than likely. This is what power without accountability brings.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
One really has to be careful with a vegan diet to get all the nutrients that one needs. It can be done, just takes work and understanding. A second thing is to be careful about fads. Like only eating potatoes for 2 weeks. Yes it can get things headed in a different direction but it is often healthier to take the time and effort to actually do it right.
Brachiator
@Ruckus: Fair enough
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
One of my favorite movies!
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, he was! Very James Dean-like.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Yeah. I was thinking some days leaning vegan, but more variety. And the occasional chicken or even steak or pork …
The potatoes for 2 weeks sounded bizarre to me, too, but I guess the idea was to break the emotional reaction to eating. Gillette said it could have been corn or anything else (although potatoes sounds more nutritious there).
Agree with you on fads. But I do think, by midlife, we often have to shake up our eating. Since the foods are more processed now, portion sizes are ginormous, and most of us are not active enough to require all the calories. It’s a pleasure to be able to afford and enjoy good food; I never forget that. We are lucky to have so much good food available, a lot of it at reasonable cost.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Heh, one of those actors I’ve seen in scads of movies and never learned his name. Thanks!
Elizabelle
@hilts: I’ve not seen any of Malick’s films, I don’t think, but hear they are required viewing. Our local movie house featured several a few months ago, but I was not in town to see them. They seem to deserve a big screen. So holding out for that.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Ophuls is a good choice. I admire him, but would not rush out to see a retrospective of his work.
The gods in my rotating pantheon are Keaton, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Truffaut, and Wilder.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: Just go vegetarian one day a week to start. Look at Meatless Mondays for some ideas. It’s not really that hard. Doing one day a week is a good way to try it out and see how it works for you.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: All good choices. I’ve not seen most of their work.
Have become a fan of Miyazaki. And just saw a marvelous Korean anime recently: Satellite Girl and Milk Cow. Loved it.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
@Elizabelle/a>:
I’ve known vegans, vegetarians, and cro magnons (meat and tator eaters exclusively) and have done a bit of all three my self. The almost vegetarian and pescetarian diets are the best in my opinion. (but of course it helps if you like fish!) It’s not as difficult to get all the nutrients one needs so the work load of just having dinner is easier and it doesn’t take as much effort to get tasty meals.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
It may well be accelerated to the loading dock at the BJ office tower, then it can’t fit into the grass hut in the lobby that is the nerve center of the whole operation. Who can say?
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Absolutely. Have been picking up some good cookbooks in second hand stores with exactly that theme. I’d love to make up some lovely vegetarian casseroles that I can freeze individual portions, and just pull out as needed.
Or Mark Bittman recommends trying to be vegan until 6:00 p (and then eat what you like).
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
What the fuck happened there?
Clean up on aisle 235 please….
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
You can make a lot of Mexican food vegan by ordering the vegetarian burrito or fajitas and leaving off the dairy. That’s my friends’ go-to when they get invited out for dinner.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
Not only the nerve center but the portable 100 w generator that runs the entire north side of town.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: I love Mark Bittman. He’s got a good approach. I actually find it works better for me to eat bigger meals in the morning and at lunch and a smaller meal at night. I can take or leave the meat at night but need the protein earlier in the day. I think everyone is different.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I agree with most of those, but I like a little more emotion and a little less cynicism ? so I would add Lubitsch and Hawks in addition to Ophuls. I also like Sturges, even though he’s problematic on race.
Our oldest cat is named Keaton, so it should be obvious where we stand in the Chaplin vs Keaton wars.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Yeah, I like protein in the morning, for sure. I will eat an egg salad or tuna salad sandwich, or left over pizza or pasta.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
We are.
I can’t eat too much of anything in the morning. Haven’t been able for decades. You don’t want to know.
And I am finding that I eat less these days in total, now that my growth spurts have ceased. Of course that was 40 yrs ago, but still.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
And to be clear — my “can take ‘em or leave ‘em” directors on your list are Kubrick and Truffaut, except for “Dr. Strangelove” and “Adele H.”, respectively.
Viva BrisVegas
@Cermet:
That is probably a long term problem for India. The medium term problem is the effect of AGW on the Indian Monsoon.
In the 1870s the monsoon failed two years in a row and 5-6 million people died.
If the land heats up faster than the ocean, the monsoon intensifies and flooding results.
If the ocean heats up faster than the land, the monsoon weakens and drought results.
There are indications that the monsoon was weakening until about 2000 due to a warming Indian Ocean. Since then increases in land temperatures have reversed that trend, with resulting wide spread flooding and extreme rainfall events.
There is change coming that will affect over a billion people. We just don’t know how it will affect them.
hilts
@Elizabelle:
I didn’t care for Badlands, but I strongly recommend Days of Heaven.and The Thin Red Line,
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
It tastes best raw.
Elizabelle
@hilts: Thank you. We should do a film club here!
@Sister Golden Bear: Glad that you are back, and continue your post op. Best wishes with that. Did you feel you got to see enough of Thailand (and I realize you were not there as a tourist)?
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: Sashimi you!
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle: Props for using the correct term!
hilts
@Brachiator:
I like the names in your rotating pantheon especially Truffaut. Does Robert Altman come close to making your cut?
JR
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: sounds like drugs
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
Do you like the one with Joan Bennett and James Mason? (Reckless Moment)? I think that’s one of the most brilliant movies ever made.
hilts
@Elizabelle:
i agree. Off the top of my head, some films I love that should have gotten much more acclaim upon release: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, The Spanish Prisoner, The Daytrippers, Next Stop Greenwich Village, and Husbands,
These are 2 sites I like to check out periodically http://www.theyshootpictures.com/index.htm and https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: If I could have only one film I would wrestle with choosing between Trouble in Paradise and The 39 Steps. I just have not seen enough Lubitsch to put him in the pantheon. Renoir is also there. Hawks is in the second tier.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, that’s one of my favorites. Caught is really good, too, with Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Ryan, and James Mason in a fairly straightforward romantic role.
My favorite Ophuls film is a post-war one he made in France, The Earrings of Madame de …. That is a major tearjerker, in the good old-fashioned sense.
Brachiator
@hilts: @Brachiator: Robert Altman visits regularly, not only because of his more well known films, but also because of 3 Women, which is a masterpiece before it falls apart. McCabe and Mrs Miller is a thing of beauty, and one of the best meditations on the sickness behind the American Dream since Citizen Kane.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Okay, run out and rent To Be Or Not To Be and Heaven Can Wait. Those will resolve the Lubitsch question for you.
And Hawks is in my pantheon because he was able to direct musicals as different as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Rio Bravo and pull them both off.
Some fans of Westerns will try to claim that Rio Bravo isn’t a musical, but they’re just embarrassed that they like a musical. ?
hilts
@Elizabelle:
Do you have any art houses near you?
hilts
@Brachiator: @Mnemosyne:
Have either of you ever seen Gabriel Over the White House? It’s on my list films to check out one of these days.
Mnemosyne
@hilts:
I have it on DVD, but I haven’t watched it. Walter Huston is one of my favorite Pre-Code actors, so I really need to get around to it one of these days.
Elizabelle
@hilts: I am in Richmond, VA, and we have the Byrd Theatre, a 1928 movie palace, which I love. It’s finishing up a James Bond series. Sherlock Holmes movies coming in September. http://byrdtheatre.com With chandeliers, a harp, an organist, and a balcony that is occasionally open.
We are allowed to suggest movies to them, so suggest away!
Used to live in DC when we had the Biograph and the McArthur and several art houses. They are just about all gone now, but loved them. I think several are CVS drugstores now. Alas.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: And Warren Williams! Loved him!
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
Someone else here is a big Warren Williams fan. Maybe Omnes? I can’t remember now.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: One day TCM was doing a WW day, and I got on the internet and was interacting with a guy who wrote a book about Mr. Williams. Very cool.
I don’t have cable anymore, so no TCM. I wish they had a streaming (only) option. Don’t think they do … They show Gabriel Over Washington every other year or so.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: I’ve seen both those Lubitsch films. They don’t seal the deal for me. I’d like to see Heaven Can Wait again. I prefer A Matter of Life and Death, mildly similar themes. Powell and Pressburger are pantheon adjacent.
Gabriel Over the White House is in my TCM queue.
hilts
@Mnemosyne:
I agree with you on Walter Hustion. I think he’s deeply underrated.
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for the link. That looks like a great theater. In addition to the films I mentioned in a previous post, I’d add 2 more that I saw recently Cold Water, a 1994 French film written and directed by Olivier Assayas and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. i was lucky enough to see the David Bowie Is exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, so it was great to see more Bowie.
.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle: I have TCM via YoutubeTV.
NotMax
@hilts
It’s … problematic, dynamic as Huston is. Lurved his impish Old Scratch in The Devil and Daniel Webster.
@Mnemosyne
Lubitsch? Ninothcka.
’nuff said.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Well, if To Be Or Not To Be didn’t seal the deal, then Lubitsch may not be for you. He manages to make the Nazis bumbling and terrifying at the same time, and Felix Bressart steals the show as he always does (see also The Shop Around the Corner for another theft by Bressart).
I also love A Matter of Life and Death, and it clearly shows the Lubitsch influence, but Lubitsch did it first, so he should get a little extra credit for inspiring the imitators.
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne:
I once met a person from Lincoln, Nebraska, who said her late mother had known Charlie Starkweather. I didn’t ask, but if her mother had known him it’s likely she had known Caril Fugate too.
NotMax
@NotMax
Ninotchka.
(No edit.)
Viva BrisVegas
@hilts:
It’s a very polemical piece. If people in the 30s thought that Walter Huston’s President was the answer, then it must have been a horrible question.
For me, Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece is A Canterbury Tale. But I can see how wartime audiences would have seen it as self-indulgent and creepy.
hilts
@NotMax:
Yes, I loved The Devil and Daniel Webster as well..
@Brachiator:
“I have TCM via YoutubeTV.”
I didn’t realize that was an option. Thanks for mentioning it.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Elizabelle:, @Mnemosyne:
Ahem. It’s Warren William, ladies, and he is without a doubt the preëminent pre-Code horndog.
I give you Under Eighteen (1932). Check his line shortly after 1:15 in this trailer.
Elizabelle
@hilts: I just picked up two treasures at a book sale this weekend: book on directors’ first films (and there’s a film series there). My First Movie: 20 Celebrated Directors Talk about their First Film. (The Coen Brothers, Almadovar; so far have only read Neal Jordan’s interview — his first movie was Angel, based on an incident with the Miami Showband, musicians who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.)
And a David Bowie VHS tape, a bunch of his 1980s videos. I hear you can reserve time on the VHS to DVD recorder at the library. How cool would that be?
Saw 90% of the Bowie costume exhibit in Barcelona. Had hoped to get to Brooklyn, but didn’t happen. Did you notice if it was traveling again? Or just back to the Victoria and Albert?
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Pretty Poison is another great cult movie that has a similar plot. It stars Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, who’s great as a really scary bad seed.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: Looking into that. Wow, that would be great.
I watch, uh, Forensic Files on Youtube. Better than Ambien.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (tablet): That’s right. Because you have to remember which first name goes first…. No S. Got it.
hilts
@Viva BrisVegas:
Thanks for sharing your opinion on Gabriel. I haven’t seen A Canterbury Tale, so I’ll add it to my list.
Mnemosyne
@Viva BrisVegas:
There’s a reason the film was suppressed until FDR was in office. It has a very scary message for a very scary time in American history.
And since we’re bringing up Powell and Pressburger, how about some love for I Know Where I’m Going!
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
Me!
Viva BrisVegas
@hilts:
While you are looking out for Walter Huston movies, remember Dodsworth. Probably his best, or at least most restrained.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I dunno, Ricardo Cortez tried to give him a run for his money. The Cortez version of The Maltese Falcon isn’t nearly as good as the Bogart version, but it has its charms and Cortez is quite effectively sleazy.
One of the first popular books about Hollywood film censorship and Joe Breen gets its title from that film: The Dame in the Kimono.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
I think it may have been Steeplejack that I was thinking of, because it was definitely a guy. But I’ll add you to my list. ?
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Love it!
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
He has the immortal line, “Peabody, you’re disgusting!” (Gold Diggers of 1933)
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
You guys are making me want to dust off my Pre-Code blog again, and I don’t have time. Argh!
Chetan Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: With respect, I believe that many studies have been done comparing with other countries where gaming has equal or greater penetration, compared to the US, and there doesn’t appear to be a correlation between any sort of violence, and gaming.
Steeplejack
Since all you cinéastes are here, I will make my final recommendation for Juliet, Naked, which I saw last Friday and enjoyed greatly. Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Chris O’Dowd, directed by Jesse Peretz. Not exactly a rom-com, but rom-com-adjacent and very smartly done.
hilts
@Elizabelle:
That book sounds very cool. As far as I know, the Brooklyn Museum was the final stop for the David Bowie Is.exhibition.
Two caveats regarding the film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. At times, the video isn’t as sharp as I would have hoped. Second, for some inexplicable reason, Jeff Beck insisted that his performance be removed so The Jean Genie/Love Me Do and Round and Round are missing from the film. I love Jeff Beck, but I think that was a real dickish move on his part.
Shana
@Betty Cracker: I agree about Cruz. My younger daughter recently moved to Dallas and I badger her almost daily to make sure she gets registered. Evidently she has to wait until a bill comes in with her current address, a copy of her lease isn’t sufficient I guess.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (tablet): Fun. Marian Marsh. Born Violet Ethelred Krauth. In Trinidad, to a German chocolate manufacturer. 1913-2006. Good long life; wrote a book too. Had never heard of her.
And Warren William is spectacular in the clip.
Who is the Warren William of our time, do you think?
Elizabelle
@Shana: I badger her
Good turn of phrase! We will all have to badger (McMurtry).
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I understood you were going to be resting after Friday.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: You will once you’re recuperating. At length, right ….
hilts
@Viva BrisVegas:
I’ve seen Dodsworth and enjoyed it very much.
@Mnemosyne:
I’ll second that sentiment about Pretty Poison.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Shall follow the lead to repeat from the weekend –
In the mood for a heartwarming little movie?
Check out Little Big Voice on Amazon Prime.
Compact and tenderly put together Austrian film. Not a misstep by any of the cast, whatever their age. Oh, and have a few tissues at the ready (no, randy jackals, not for that).
Brachiator
@NotMax: What is Little Big Voice about?
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Cortez could sleaze it up, but William gets the nod because even in his “good” roles (e.g., Perry Mason) he looks like he’s mentally undressing every dame in the vicinity, plus he almost looks like a Tex Avery cartoon of a “wolf.”
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Yup. William was nonpareil in portraying urbane horndog.
Whereas Ramon Novarro (gay though he was) could exude horndog. Clip from a mostly silent film (it does have some synched sound scenes). Incidentally, the girl in the clip, Dorothy Janis, made it all the way ’til age 98; died in 2010.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Link provided above is to the trailer.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Not much chance of it playing here. Unless it’s a Marvel comic.
NotMax
@NotMax
Which would have made her 16 or 17 in the film with Novarro!
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
I don’t see that as horndoggery. It’s more “noble savage clumsy flirting.”
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Yes, far more innocent than William. But also cute!
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Yes, but if I remember correctly from last time, I’m going to be frickin’ miserable and trying not to throw up from the opiates while still being in enough pain to make me massively cranky. Not going to be fun for anyone around Casa Mnemosyne next week.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I thought you lived in a civilized area—Massachusetts or Connecticut? I don’t think this is some hothouse indie flower. It’s got a “name” cast and it’s taken from a Nick Hornby novel. But it doesn’t seem to be getting any publicity. Anyway, it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year, so if you get a chance to see it you should jump on it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Huh? Are you daft? I couldn’t pick out Wobbly Whatis in police line-up.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
And could sing!
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (tablet): Wiki has a great review line re Under Eighteen.
The NY Times review, from December 26, 1931 (ho ho ho):
hilts
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for that NYT review excerpt.
I like this quote about Warren William from Joan Blondell: “[He] … was an old man – even when he was a young man.”
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
I don’t know, but it’s probably someone in “serious” television, not movies.
@Elizabelle:
I saw Under Eighteen on TCM one afternoon, when they really go deep into the archives to fill up the air time. Lots of forgettable B-movies, but sometimes interesting for period details. Under Eighteen is definitely a period “racy” film, but there are some interesting notes.
One is when a married woman with a worthless husband finally decides to take action. She goes to a big office building downtown, and as the camera scans the directory on the lobby wall you see all doctors’ offices. Damn, she’s going to get an abortion! But then the camera cuts to her getting off the elevator upstairs, and it’s an attorney’s office. Damn, she’s getting a divorce!
J R in WV
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’ve been reviewing your personal blog. You have revealed so much to help others on your path, for which everyone should thank you.
Best of luck going forward!
And remember that at 52 or 53, to a guy like me at 67 you are a youngster! Hang in there!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Not everyone has seen every movie. Bad spoiler.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
I’m in CT, but our local 12-plex isn’t showing it (I could, however go see Mamma Mia! again if I so desired) and school is about to start so there’s no time to drive to another town to see a movie, even if I ever did that, which I don’t.
NotMax
@hilts
Tangentially reminded of Robert Redford’s explanation of why he turned down overtures to play the lead in The Graduate: “Even when I was a virgin, I didn’t look like one.”
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha! I figure I get some leeway after 86 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: If you say so. If it is rather obscure, people may not know it. YMMV.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
That will be remedied under the Baud! administration.
:)
hilts
@NotMax:
Yeah, I’ve seen that Redford quote. I also read somewhere that Mike Nichols favored Dustin Hoffman because he reminded him of himself..
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
You mean you seriously intend to seek out Under Eighteen, and you think its plot turns will be unpredictable?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was mixing you up with Steep. You can decide how you each feel about that. ?
hilts
@NotMax:
I’ve never read the novel The Graduate but I’ve heard that its physical description of Ben Braddock is much closer to Redford than to Hoffman.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Gee, I could have sworn Omnes was joking, but maybe he’s going into his occasional late-night dick mode.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
I better not tell him that at the end of Stowaway Shirley Temple gets Robert Young together with Alice Faye and they adopt her and live happily ever after.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I also assumed he was joking, though M^4 has an even better “spoilers!” joke in the thread above as a response to me.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Jeez—shut your mouth!
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Heh, I saw that.
Maybe we need a blog spoiler ethics panel or something.