Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

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

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

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

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Media Village Idiots Open Thread: Poking the Snake

Media Village Idiots Open Thread: Poking the Snake

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Weirdly, the Idiot Media’s fixation with urging Lord Smallgloves to go full-metal paranoid seems like Good News for Democrats… if it doesn’t get us all killed. The infotainers workshopping ever-more-unlikely scenarios (“Will you order Kirsten Nielsen to *personally* gun down diseased migrant babies at the border?”) are like kids on a vandalism spree, hopped up on adrenaline, daring each other to move from ‘juvenile pranks’ to ‘malicious mischief’.

Seems like they perceive this, consciously or not, as their last chance to prod Trump and his fellow Repubs into increasingly spectacular / dangerous stunts, before the grownups show up and shut down the party…


Reader Interactions

180Comments

  1. 1.

    J R in WV

    Oh, my, first?

    The reporters working to ask Trump questions that lead him into every more serious and strange idiocy really is dangerous. They never try to get him to admit that he’s pushing falsehoods and strange conspiracy theories.

    Which would be more constructive than just pushing him into scary bullshit, which is his SOP.

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    AL:

    Seems like they perceive this, consciously or not, as their last chance to prod Trump and his fellow Repubs into increasingly spectacular / dangerous stunts, before the grownups show up and shut down the party…

    Anne, that’s perceptive, thank you! It’s very (ahem) Leninist (“heighten the contradictions”) of them, isn’t it?

  3. 3.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    I think these reporters should be identified and fired from their jobs for helping to spread such anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy theories.

  4. 4.

    FlyingToaster

    @J R in WV:

    They never try to get him to admit that he’s pushing falsehoods and strange conspiracy theories.

    Because he wouldn’t. He claims that he’s always right. Instead of admitting anything, he’d attack the journalist. As he’s done repeatedly already.

  5. 5.

    gene108

    @J R in WV:

    They never try to get him to admit that he’s pushing falsehoods and strange conspiracy theories.

    Trump’s default defense to this is going with “people say” or “they say” or “people are talking about” ‘x’ conspiracy theory. And when you ask him “who are they?”, he gets more defensive and tries to change the subject.

    Trump had a low cunning that has served him well. Reporters aren’t used to interviewing those kinds of con men.

  6. 6.

    Chetan Murthy

    @FlyingToaster:

    Because he wouldn’t. He claims that he’s always right. Instead of admitting anything, he’d attack the journalist.

    And -that- is a “dog bites man” story. Whereas (even now) “Secy Nielsen [ed: spit] ready to issue shoot to kill orders at border” — now THAT is “man bites dog”.

  7. 7.

    randy khan

    It would be great if the thing he thinks put him over the top in 2016 dragged the Republicans down now.

  10. 10.

    Ruckus

    I mean they cast their lot with a guy whose defining professional skill is failing and moving on, leaving a bunch of people to clean up the damage in his wake. Where do they see themselves in this self destruction cycle?

    They see themselves outside looking in. They are journalists and their job is supposedly to stand outside and look around, not to be part of the solution but only to report on the problems. At least that’s the way most of them write. Maybe they get paid to write that way. I get paid to work the way my boss wants me to. It is in many ways opposite what I’ve been trained to do but it’s his money, it’s what he wants. He tells me to do something a certain way, that’s what he gets. He tells me to make something, without the process info, it gets made my way.

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    @J R in WV: There have been times when reporters have told him to his face that he’s wrong, and he’s backed down. He usually says something like, “Well that’s what I was told” or some such nonsense.

    But it doesn’t change anything.

    His base doesn’t watch the BBC, so admitting he’s wrong about something there doesn’t hurt him.

    Billy, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That’s it: you just tell them and they believe. They just do.

    So, did I get him?? (5:21)

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    gene108

    On a personal note, I got a kidney transplant Monday night.

    I am beginning to get over the “god damn this hurts” stage and can almost sit up on my own. I can walk a bit too.

    When there is a big incision in your abdomen, I realize I haven really taken for granted how much my abdominal muscles are used to go from sitting to standing and keeping you upright, when walking.

    Hopefully I get to the point people describe after a transplant as having more energy soon.

  13. 13.

    J R in WV

    @gene108:

    “he gets more defensive and tries to change the subject.”

    Yes, but when someone is getting defensive, one had the opportunity to be offensive and keep asking about your first topic. None of these TV guys ever do that.

    And don’t let me get started on Andrea Mitchell Greenspan, who can watch a speech live, and then turn to the TV camera and describe something that I never saw. She really takes the cake, to use a really old saw…

    Y’all have a good evening, I’m about done. Now I’m going to read exotic SciFi and try to recover my optimism. I’ve made a couple more contributions as people have talked about districts where Democratic candidates have an improving chance to win election. That should help me relax going into bedtime.

    See you around 3 or 4 am…

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Have been sprinkling in a variety of holiday music here and there during the day. One last sprinkle.

    Doo-wop. Or doo-not. There is no try.

    And cannot let the day go by without the annual link to Happy Halloween.

  15. 15.

    Ithink

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    I’d be inclined to agree with you but we can’t fire journalists by and large for being (temporally) stupid. Yes, in light of this past weekend’s tragedy its absolutely fatalistic and beyond irresponsible in these times to ask such non-sensical B.S. but here we are! It’s just such a base part of human nature and what themodern, hyper-distracted American mainstream media is as a tabloid fixture some mistakes are simply inevitable regardless of the political party or affiliation it favors or disadvantages. We just got to get better about informing our fellow citizens!

  17. 17.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    OT: I’ve been thinking about what the Democratic agenda should be when we take back power completely. I think our foreign policy should enshrine real human rights as well as an aggressive stance against autocracy/iliberal democracy. I think we need to do everything we can to shore up the center/left establishments of our traditional allies as well as promote these values abroad.

    I’m not sure if we would need to have direct intervention into the internal politics of nations such as Brazil or even France (deposing Marine Le Pen for example if she were to win) by fermenting pro-democratic coups. Sort of like the reverse of what the US and others have done in the past. Instead of overthrowing the government of another nation for United Fruit, we’ll overthrow the far-right government for freedom and democracy.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    Seems like they perceive this, consciously or not, as their last chance to prod Trump and his fellow Repubs into increasingly spectacular / dangerous stunts, before the grownups show up and shut down the party…

    This is fucking absurd. There are no adults waiting in the wings to come to the rescue.

    Reporters control nothing, nor can they channel or direct anything by asking stupid questions.

    Foolish voters are not going to snap out of it and suddenly shout, “Oh, I don’t want Trump anymore.”

    On the other hand, it is entirely possible that some lunatic will be set off by conspiracy mongering and decide to hurt innocent people.

  20. 20.

    Cheryl Rofer

    The thing I’d like to ask all Republicans in congress if I thought I’d get an honest answer is, “By what scenario do you see all of this ending well?”

    I have been asking this generally on Twitter and more specifically to my Republican friends on Facebook – what they want out of this. One did answer with a rose-colored scenario of strong women who didn’t need to get abortions and strong men who protected them, but otherwise no answers at all. I found the one answer totally fantastical, but had to admire the woman who constructed it and was willing to share, given that nobody else seemed to have an answer at all.

  24. 24.

    Jager

    Mr President, 60% of Americans think you are a lying sack of shit. Is there anything you’d like to say to them?

  29. 29.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Matt McIrvin:
    Yeah, and Bush lost it by not properly doing nation-building like we did after WW2.

    Besides, this is greater and different than Iraq. The entire world is going far-right. The US seems to be the only/first nation to seem to be overcoming this shit. We have to act to preserve liberal democracy and destroy the forces of reaction, hear and abroad. We can’t just sit back and let the work of millions over decades go to hell, to slide into the climate abyss.

  30. 30.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    one more tweet

    James Poniewozik @ poniewozik
    I’m just gonna be a crank for a minute.
    The job of journalism is not to appear unbiased.
    The job of journalism is to accurately describe the world as you find it.
    If you think the first thing is more important than the second, you picked the wrong job.

    the author is the New York Times…. TV critic. I wonder if Jeremy Peters is smart enough to know he just got subtweeted from across the cafeteria

  34. 34.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @NotMax:

    Why? TBH, I’d rather not do CIA dirty tricks, even in service of a greater cause. I guess I was trying to get opinions on “direct intervention” and the concept of “gunboat diplomacy” put to encouraging real democracy.

    Which would probably be more trouble than it’s worth.

  37. 37.

    Ohio Mom

    @gene108: Congrats on your new kidney! That’s very exciting.

    A friend of mine is donating a kidney next month. I guess I can tell her it will take a while until she can sit up easily again.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    I’m not sure if we would need to have direct intervention into the internal politics of nations such as Brazil or even France (deposing Marine Le Pen for example if she were to win) by fermenting pro-democratic coups.

    Please stop with the crazy ideas.

    Also, you ferment wine.

    You foment political unrest.

    Let’s not do either.

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    @gene108:

    Glad you’re hear to tell us about it, sorry you needed to have one in the first place.

    Best wishes for a speedy and total recovery!

  43. 43.

    Chetan Murthy

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    Yeah, and Bush lost it by not properly doing nation-building like we did after WW2.

    To add to what Matt said, I think this is not a great way of looking at it. There’s been only a few cases where the US did nation-building well: basically, Europe and Japan after WWII. Even South Korea, we basically left it a dictatorship for many years — the Koreans fixed it themselves. And look at Libya: we really did well there, didn’t we?

    One thing Obama did, that I supported, was to pull back on using the military so aggressively. He had to do some of it [b/c otherwise he’d have been run out of DC on a rail] but the longer he was in office, the more he tried to pull back. And before somebody says “but DRONEZ!” the point is, he didn’t use boots on the ground, which is what the GrOPers were calling for. That would have been even worse.

    More generally, Goku, I think you should be prepared [in the event the Dems get the trifecta] for better governance, but not some massive liberal foreign policy agenda. The Dems are a centrist party with constituencies amongst many monied interests, and they’re going to govern like that. We might like the Dems to govern more to the left, but until and unless it is -clear- that they can continue to win elections while doing so, that’s not gonna happen.

    OTOH, the interests of a “stationary bandit” are often co-incident with the people he lords over. So I think we can expect strong action on climate change, ecosystem destruction, maybe a few other things [foreign-policy-wise]. And for sure, I hope we can expect more “don’t do stupid stuff” [Obama’s slogan].

    Just …. y’know, we have to be measured in our expectations. The Democratic party is a big coalition.

  44. 44.

    kindness

    I have a special animosity towards Axios because I loathe Jim VandeHei & his cohort Mike Allen. God they made Politico sucky and now they have the new pony to do it all over again. They present absolute shit to the world and declare it daring and insightful and the rest of the MSM nods it’s head. We are truly damned by the media we have.

  45. 45.

    Amir Khalid

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    It is delightful to contemplate tossing from the profession journalists who say/write things you don’t like, but in a democracy that values free expression it is dangerous to consider assigning that kind of power to anyone. That person would be the most powerful official censor in the nation.

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    @gene108: Best wishes to you. Hope the new kidney settles in easily, and that you have a full recovery. That is some serious surgery.

    You have mentioned dialysis before. Will this transplant release you from having to continue that?

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Uh huh.

    Direct intervention in or overturning of sovereign elections.

    Imposing “freedom” at the point of gun.

    Unless this is some sort of application to be a Hegemon Fund manager, just cease the jejune power tripping.

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    @kindness:

    And I’ve been all confused for several days because I mixed it up with Atrios and had no idea what he had to do with Allen and Vanderhei.

  65. 65.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Cheryl Rofer: Do you remember her interview? She said “She’s a queen”. (ok, in toddler-speak, it was “she queen” I think). She got me to thinking: the Obamas are really the closest we have to royalty in America today. I mean, the Kennedys are a pretty tarnished brand, and pretty superannuated too. The Obamas, well, they’re people that all decent folk look up to and want to emulate. They embody all the good attributes we’d expect of a monarch. Oh, sigh.

  66. 66.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @NotMax:
    But I want to remake the world in my own image and rule over it like a god!!! I know what’s best and everyone else should just obey me!!!/s

    Seriously, I just wanted to see what people would think of the concepts. I’m not advocating them and would prefer the use of soft power. I don’t actually disagree with what just said. I sometimes get carried away with “edgy” ideas. Sorry. Really.

  67. 67.

    Jay Noble

    Is anyone looking into informing all those soldiers headed for the border they can refuse an unlawful order? Does that become “The Incident” when a soldier(s) refuse to fire on unarmed citizens are shot by not so conscientious soldiers? Maybe that is part of the point of all this saber rattling – a who’s loyal test.

    I was very scared in ’04 (and ’08) that W was gonna declare martial law before the elections – we were at war afterall. Trump doesn’t have a war. Yet.

    Voting tomorrow and Nebraska has Medicaid Expansion on the Ballot via initiative!

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: Sarah Palin’s Wasilla Wines! all the best flavors you betcha! Strawberry, Orange and Grape, tastes like Nehi!

    ETA: Do they still make Nehi? ETA, A: Wiki says yes

  72. 72.

    Chetan Murthy

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    I don’t actually disagree with what just said. I sometimes get carried away with “edgy” ideas.

    OK, so now I’ll mea culpa back at you. When the Iraq War marketing rollout was in-progress, I was actually bamboozled into believing it. I’d been a Dem voter since age 21, and there I was, believing that B.S. A friend (Frank) convinced me that there was nothing that a war could achieve, that peaceful means couldn’t. Esp. since the US already had that no-fly zone in place. So by the time the war came around, I was rabidly against. But shit, it’s easy to get convinced by ideas of unilaterally remaking the world — it can happen to any of us.

    Heck, remember Libya? A lot of liberals bought into the idea that we MUST do something — after all, people were dying!!!! — and we can see now how awfully that turned out. It’s not clear that just because something horrible is happening, that we should intervene unilaterally. Indeed, it’s often a really bad idea. But that’s a hard lesson to learn. Heck, I didn’t learn it until I was in my 30s.

  77. 77.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I stand by everything I said in that first paragraph in 17, utilizing soft power. The second was honestly pretty crazy in retrospect, but I sometimes get caught up in the moment. I’m afraid of seeing the world as I know it crumble and replaced with something horrifying and unrecognizable. That’s truly scary to me. And I guess I’m not immune to reactionary thinking myself when I’m frightened and want to see those I deem evil punished/defeated.

  79. 79.

    Corner Stone

    I just want to continue making wildly baseless and inflammatory statements! I don’t mean them, I am just curious to see how others get offended by them! Then I will ask others to answer why the things I say are so offensive to them. Because I really don’t know, round 43. I’m just asking and apologies to all.

  80. 80.

    Platonailedit

    @gene108:

    That’s because the so called reporters are just overpaid hacks with fat paychecks. The trumpturd is their fugly creation and their eternal meal ticket.

  82. 82.

    jl

    It’s Fox News, of course they’d just throw out the word ‘Soros’ as bait. That’s their job.

    As for a tweet lower down:
    ” If you have a working class base and an anti-working class agenda, you need to turn up the culture war stuff to 11. ”

    I don’t remember whether Krugman predicted the racist xenophobic scare tactics explicitly at the time, but when Trump was elected he did write that the US GOP was an oddity among right wing authoritarian political operations that gained power with a leader making populist promises, in that they had plans to hurt their working class base, rather than help it. Krugman did predict it was unlikely to work. I hope that prediction is coming true for the midterms.

  84. 84.

    MCA1

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I saw a Beto sticker on a Land Rover in North suburban Chicago a couple weeks ago. He should move to Colorado or something if he loses, run for governor and then the White House, as it appears he’s got legitimate national appeal.

  85. 85.

    Yutsano

    So way OT: one of the reasons I’m growing more optimistic is because there are number disparities that are running our way. A case in point is this WaPo article showing there are 40 seats we don’t have to work on. The Republicans have three. They have a LOT more work to do to get to 218 than we do.

  86. 86.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Corner Stone:
    Oh, look at me, I’m a fucking passive-aggressive pansy-coward who doesn’t have the balls to directly talk to the person I’m talking about!

  88. 88.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    Could you pop over here real quick and take some pics of the loaf of bread just removed from the super duper bread machine?

    So superb looking whole it’ll be a shame to slice into it.

  89. 89.

    lamh36

    Jeffery Toobin has NMFTG!!

    WOW! This escalated quickly… Jeffrey Toobin flat out calls Kris Kobach a racist to his face. WATCH: bit.ly/2ESCqD2

  90. 90.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:
    Last time I has surgery that they put me to sleep for was nothing like what you had and I felt great the next day. The day after that was not my finest. I was black and blue for about a third of my body. I thought I was bleeding uncontrollably. For those of you that didn’t know any better than me, it was normal. Take your time, follow docs advice, they’ve done this before, you haven’t.
    And best of luck and congrats on a new kidney. Hope it all works great for you.

  91. 91.

    randy khan

    @gene108:

    That’s great news. The one person I knew who had a kidney transplant said it was like night and day, so much better after she had it.

    (And as an aside (and obviously I don’t know the origins of your kidney), my dad was an organ donor and after he passed away we got a note from someone who’d gotten one of his kidneys. It made us feel like something good had come out of his death, and also made us happy that we had made sure his wishes were respected.) And, yes, the organ donor box is checked on my driver’s license.

  92. 92.

    Mart

    @gene108: I had my core cut and it was debilitating (with the added joy of opioid constipation on top). Cannot imagine an organ transplant adding to the fun. Try to double or triple your steps every day, go up and down one stair, then three, etc. It will get better pretty quick.

  97. 97.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Chetan Murthy:
    What I remember about Libya is that it was NATO’s decision and action, and we fulfilled our treaty obligations by starting the bombing runs when they asked us to, then getting the Hell out as soon as their forces were in place.

  98. 98.

    Ruckus

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    Got news for you. A lot of the world never went far left in the first place. Don’t get confused that we are out of the norm or that every where else is fairy gum drop land. Some of it we’ve had a hand it fucking up but never underestimate the ability of conservatives anywhere from having the absolute ability of fucking up a wet dream. Life is like a twisty logging road, lots of ups and downs, a lot of side roads to get lost on and big things can fall upon you at any moment. Pay attention, think about what you really want, study history, learn what hasn’t worked before, learn what never works, learn what people really want and maybe, just maybe you’ll stop asking the kinds of questions that make people wonder what the hell kind of breakfast cereal are you eating and what are you sprinkling on it.

  99. 99.

    B.B.A.

    @Chetan Murthy: Libya made me a pacifist. Fool me twice, can’t get fooled again.

    I wonder how much worse off we’d be just letting the NDAA lapse and dissolving the armed forces. Yes, it’s an extraordinarily radical and unpopular action, and yes, it would make us “unsafe”, but with the current Commander-in-Chief nobody is safe.

  102. 102.

    trollhattan

    @gene108:
    Holy fucking shit! You win the medical challenge competition (did you know there was one?)

    I know one kidney donor and once met the world’s first recipient (seriously, the kid featured in “Life” magazine). Magic 8 Ball says you will do well. Here’s wishing for a speedy recovery!

  106. 106.

    Viva BrisVegas

    “I mean they cast their lot with a guy whose defining professional skill is failing and moving on, leaving a bunch of people to clean up the damage in his wake. Where do they see themselves in this self destruction cycle?”

    Failing and moving on, of course.

    Next set of Republicans, “That was those Republicans, nothing to do with us. Now, about the Democrat budget deficit …”

  107. 107.

    Platonailedit

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Neither the Secretary of Defense nor any other senior military leader will whisper a word of objection to this political stunt.

    Recall that Secretary of Defense James Mattis served as a prop when the president signed his Muslim ban at the Pentagon. Recall also that Mattis helpfully offered DoD facilities to support the president’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents when detained at the border.

    To be sure, Mattis has a world-class press operation designed to leak selected postures of toughness which alight the internet. However, if you’ve bet your life that Jim Mattis will discover his spine in the face of presidential political exploitation, you’re already dead.

    I remember all the glowing bj hagiography of these military types, who are gonna be the saviors of democracy.

  108. 108.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Ruckus:

    I just want to go back to the way things were before. I’ve fucked up so much that Corner Stone won’t talk to me anymore. We used to talk here a bit and that all ended because I said something stupid. And he won’t even give me the fucking time of day to make amends. Instead, he passive-aggressively mocks me without even talking to me.

    I’ve got news for you CS: I’m for real and I fuck up a lot. I’m human. It’s not an act and I’m really that dumb. Are you fucking happy?

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @Platonailedit:
    I’ve often wondered about that. They work for a democracy, they don’t work in one. Yes you are trained not to follow an unlawful order. There is some training on what an unlawful order is. But really you are on your own in determining what an unlawful order is. And seeing as how most 18-25 yr olds are highly trained legal scholars who understand the constitution perfectly and know everyone of the thousands of pages of federal law it all works out super.

  114. 114.

    waratah

    @gene108: I always lose strength in the hospital, but when I get home I recover quickly. I was shocked that I could become so weak. With your new kidney you will start feeling so much better.

  120. 120.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    I’m going to stop saying outrageous, stupid shit from now on. I’m sick of looking like an asshole.

  121. 121.

    Ruckus

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    Old saw, you can’t please everyone all the time. There’s a reason it’s an old saw, it’s true.
    Did you understand what I told you?
    If you don’t know the answer to the questions and want answers, do some reading. History repeats itself, time after fucking time after fucking time. Part of the reason it does that is that some people refuse to learn. They aren’t incapable of it, they just refuse. You want to be a writer, you ask questions and get answers but never seem to do what is suggested by people who actually write. Somethings don’t come easy for some people, some people have things easy all the time. A very few some people. Life is, or at least attempts to be a learning experience. But you have to met it at least halfway. You may be doing that, it seems unlikely. You may be fucking with all of us. That’s not the first time that idea has crossed a lot of minds, I’d bet. And, you may not be. But you comment a lot here and you ask questions so people are somewhat willing to respond. But you seem as I pointed out to rarely meet them halfway, and your learning curve seems way below par. I’m not trying to demean you, you seem like a mostly reasonable person. But you go on weird tangents and you stick on them. It’s not building up your Balloon Juice CV.

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @Fair Economist:

    How to Not Say Stupid, Outrageous, Asinine Shit

    A great title. Will sell millions. Liberals will buy it to figure out how to be better people. Conservatives will buy it to find out how to be worse.
    A universal book.
    What an idea!

  126. 126.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Ruckus:

    You want to be a writer, you ask questions and get answers but never seem to do what is suggested by people who actually write.

    Part of it’s laziness and part of it’s fear of failure.

    You may be doing that, it seems unlikely. You may be fucking with all of us. That’s not the first time that idea has crossed a lot of minds, I’d bet. And, you may not be. But you comment a lot here and you ask questions so people are somewhat willing to respond. But you seem as I pointed out to rarely meet them halfway, and your learning curve seems way below par. I’m not trying to demean you, you seem like a mostly reasonable person. But you go on weird tangents and you stick on them. It’s not building up your Balloon Juice CV.

    I’m serious most of the time. Sometimes I play shock jock but I’m genuine 99% of the time here. It’s in my personality to shock sometimes. I’m going to cut out that 1%. You can hold me to that going forward.

    What do you mean, meet halfway?

  131. 131.

    Yutsano

    @gene108: WOW!!! The fact that you’re walking the day after being fileted like a fish is remarkable! I hope you keep healing up well and that you will enjoy the new body part.

  132. 132.

    Chetan Murthy

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    part of it’s fear of failure.

    When I was young, I was a smart kid, got great grades. This continued in college. In grad school, I found it impossible to find a project to jump into, b/c …. they all seemed really hard, and I was afraid of failing. I ended up doing [what to me today looks like] a shitty thesis, that I heartily recommend nobody read. OK …. long story short, what I learned after that, over the next few years, was that if you don’t fail, you aren’t trying hard enough. Alternatively, the only time we learn anything, is when we fail.

    I’m only sorry it took me until I was nearly 30, to figure this out. It really improved the rest of my career.

    Seriously, I know what you mean about fear of failure. It’s fear of short-term failure. And avoiding short-term failure is the best way of ensuring long-term failure. Take it from someone who wasted 4yr of his life in grad school when he could have actually done something decent — but was too afraid of failing, to even try.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    Glendale is practically a Brand name.

    /history joke

    Come to think of it, don’t recall pix from you of the architecturally arresting Brand Library (formerly the El Miradero mansion).

  135. 135.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Major Major Major Major:
    What I’m mostly stuck on is how to end it. I want to write a dystopia based on the present set in the near-present. Fantasy elements will clash with realistic ones. It will portray the effects of the sudden emergence of magical powers concentrated in the hands of a few (the protags mostly as well as a villain from another world) and how legitimate the fear of the unknown can actually be when you’re dealing with beings that can overthrow world governments with ease. Finally, I would like to explore how horrifying the Dark Enlightenment movement is by showing what would happen if one of their proponents gained godlike power.

    The issue I’m running into is how to respectfully resolve these problems. I want a happy ending but that could be glib. After all, imagine if 1984 had ended with Winston waking up in 1949 or whenever after getting shot in the cafe; that it was all dream.

  138. 138.

    Chetan Murthy

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    What I’m mostly stuck on is how to end it.

    I’m not a writer — far from it, I wish I could compose reasonable paragraphs, sigh. But I’d always been told that few writers start with novels. That typically they practiced their craft writing scenes and short stories. I know a guy who wrote some novels, and when we’d go to bars, he’d pick out a group of people, and proceed to tell a story about them [without actually meeting them] based on what they looked like from afar.

    I’m a programmer. And the equivalent of writing a novel, would be to write a fully-developed complex system from scratch, the first time. We usually don’t do that. We start off in our biz writing subsystems to others’ specifications — really small subsystems. And eventually we learn enough to be able to piece together a full system design. But we spent a lot of time doing basically what seems to me to be the equivalent of writing a “scene” where somebody else has specified how it begins, and our job is to figure out where it goes from there.

    Idunno. Just a thought.

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:
    Well learn the difference between asking a question and proposing an asinine idea that history has seen on way too many occasions. You do that by reading, you do that by thinking past the next moment and you do that by just thinking how would you like the proposal you just asked about.
    Get off your dead ass and work at life a bit. I remember that you are young, at least a lot younger than a lot here. Now age doesn’t make you smart, shitgibbon is 72 on the outside and 4 on the inside. See how that works? It’s part of growing up, maturing. It doesn’t happen only by the sun going up and down, you actually have to put some effort into it.
    Dude I’ve failed massively twice in my life. Actually probably more but those 2 stick out. I lost everything, as I’ve said here before, in the last recession. I could have sat my ass on the sidewalk and said woe is me. But I’ve had that failure before and learned, you get back up and do it again. You think all the smart people in the world are always successful? Bullshit. It’s getting back up that makes you successful at something not never falling down.
    Every one falls down, not every one gets back up.
    Take Hillary Clinton. First lady. Senator from a big state. Lost to President Obama. Said yes and became his SoS. Did a good job. Ran again, lost to shitgibbon by winning the popular vote. Speaks out about being a better country. She’s a prime example of getting off your butt and working and then getting off your butt when you fall down. There are examples through out history. People aren’t a success because they steal a lot of money, they are successful because they work at being better. You want to be an author, then write. You don’t learn by osmosis, you learn by doing, by seeing what others have done, by thinking through tough situations, finding possible solutions and when they are crap, thinking some more. You have a brain, use it. You know big words, you know some history, that’s obvious. Just like becoming an athlete, you only get better by exercise. Your brain is the same way, you have to exercise it to make it stronger and more agile.
    How do you meet people half way?
    When people who do what you want to do tell you how, do that. Practice, practice, fucking practice. I started doing the work that I do today 55 yrs ago. I still learn new things. Because I listen. Everyone I work with has less experience than I do, some decades less but it’s not the quantity of experience, it’s the range and quality of the experience and the desire and ability to continue to learn.

  143. 143.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’m a programmer. And the equivalent of writing a novel, would be to write a fully-developed complex system from scratch, the first time. We usually don’t do that.

    Self-taught programmers often try this, usually with a game. They flail around, running into complex problems that seem more and more intractable. The good ones use this as a way to determine their areas of weakness and study up on them. It’s exactly how most writers learn.

  146. 146.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: It doesn’t need to be perfected before you write the first scene.

    Start writing, often times the solution may surface as you’re writing. And if doesn’t the first time, that’s what revision is all about. But it’s a lot easier to see, and diagnose, the problems once you’ve got a first draft out.

    Now go write.

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    Hope I don’t make any of you jealous for living in a state that actually takes democracy seriously but LA county just emailed me about voting, all the details about where, when, how. This is better than it’s ever been before. I do have to say that they’ve emailed me a few times with info, and letting me know that my mail in ballot would be here soon. It’s encouraging that a government wants me to vote, instead of trying to stop me from it. I wish everyone was as lucky and I hope those who have to work at voting get better people and better voting.

  148. 148.

    joel hanes

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    won’t talk to me any more

    If you walk toward Zaragosa,
    you are on the road to Zaragosa

    If you walk away from Zaragosa,
    you are still on the road to Zaragosa

    To not be on the road to Zaragosa,
    you must adopt a different orientation

    Go another way

  151. 151.

    Redshift

    The thing I’d like to ask all Republicans in congress if I thought I’d get an honest answer is, “By what scenario do you see all of this ending well?”

    This reminds me of the “demographic apocalypse” and various other problems where things are going to get worse for the GOP unless it changes. Someone should do something, but since all of these people are stepped in the conservative movement’s highest principle, “what’s in it for me?my,” they’re not going to rock the boat and suffer for some future benefit for other people.

  153. 153.

    opiejeanne

    @Cheryl Rofer: My sister would have answered you, “no raising the gas tax”. It’s not like she drives all that much or uses much gasoline. I think it’s the one bit of Republicanism she thinks is defensible. She lives in California, so no, it’s not really a defensible position.

  157. 157.

    Sloane Ranger

    @gene108: Congratulations. I hope you recover without complications.

    On a personal note, you’ve had a major operation and it will take some time for your body to recover. I had a total hip replacement about 4 months ago and the area was swollen and black and blue. Only when it started to go down did I begin getting the benefits. Be patient and follow medical/physio advice..

  160. 160.

    opiejeanne

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: You’re worrying about the ending but you don’t know how to get there and you want it to be a happy one.

    Have you actually started writing the beginning? Or outlining some of the book? Because writing is an odd thing for some of us in that the ending may suggest itself to you very strongly when you’re midway through the story, and it’s likely to be a stronger ending than you had planned, if you had a plan.
    My advice is that you keep a small notebook and write down what the first two or three chapters (or just the story line for the next 15 pages or so) will be about, then start writing.
    Reading while you’re writing I think is necessary. You can see how others have constructed their stories, you can decide what you like or don’t like about what they’ve done.
    What I’ve discovered once I finally got off my duff and started working earnestly on my book is that I end up reading a lot of other people’s books while I’m writing mine, sometimes for reference, sometimes for distraction. I just ordered a book about the banking fraud in Missouri during the Civil War after reading a good deal of the author’s 300 page Thesis on the same subject, I’ve bought and read several books of slave narratives, I’ve dug through family history notes, I bought books about Delmonico’s in New York, including a cookbook with menus from the period immediately following the Civil War. The Wikipedia entires for lesser-known local battles are surprisingly well-researched and the footnotes show me where to look for more information.

    My first draft is nearly done now, the ending is within reach, and there have been moments when a necessary character I’d never planned on has presented themselves and while I didn’t see why they were there at first, I can certainly see why I needed them in the story. Some of the story has just written itself in some small ways that I hadn’t planned, too. I have two choices for the end of this book, one almost too predictable to write, but I’m going to trust the book to tell me which ending it wants.

  161. 161.

    opiejeanne

    @Major Major Major Major: A neighbor was on the committee to rewrite the California Constitution in the 70s because the old one was such a huge freakin’ mess. I don’t know if this is correct but what I thought I understood was that the original constitution was written so that anything not included in it was illegal, and anything anyone wanted legalized had to be written into it. Wheelbarrows and dump trucks full of amendments to legalize stuff.

  162. 162.

    Cermet

    @gene108: Of course, take it easy and I hope you have a trouble free healing process. Unfortunately, in our insane society, recovery means get back to work asap.

  163. 163.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks. I forgot that they’d already raised it. She says she didn’t vote for Trump, but she still votes for the idiot Republicans for her district every election. She’s got all Democrats representing her in the state senate and assembly now.

  164. 164.

    Mike in DC

    @gene108: Wow. Major surgery is challenging. I had my appendix removed via laparoscopy 3 weeks ago or so. Took about a week to get my energy back. For your situation figure about 2-3 weeks, maybe 4 to 6 for full recovery. Best wishes.

  165. 165.

    gene108

    Thanks for all the well wishes. I do feel a lot better today. A real difference than yesterday or the day before.

  166. 166.

    opiejeanne

    @Mike in DC: I’m glad you’re healing so quickly.
    I had the same operation, laparocopic appendectomy, the day before Thanksgiving two years ago. They kept me in the hospital until 8:30 pm before they operated because there were more dire cases but they kept an eye on me. I came home the next morning, the kids came over and did most of the work but I got up and made two pies. I lived on the downstairs couch for a couple of days before I felt steady enough to go upstairs. Took me about a week too, like you. I was surprised but I suppose we healed more quickly because the laparoscopy is so much less invasive.

    I got the impression that they don’t see a lot of people in their late 60s with appendicitis.

  167. 167.

    Tony Jay

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    The issue I’m running into is how to respectfully resolve these problems.

    There is no way to resolve problems like that. They just roll on and on through the generations becoming a feature of life that each generation has to deal with in their own way.

    So change the situation. Write the scene where the extra-dimensional Others who are – actually – responsible for seeding all of these other realities with fantasy magic turn up to eat everyone, as they have on countless worlds before. Suddenly the characters you’ve had fighting each other have got a bigger bad they have to unite against, with all that fresh conflict to explore. It doesn’t matter if you don’t use that ending, just jump in, practice, and see if it sparks any ideas.

    Just write. Inspiration will come.

  168. 168.

    NotMax

    @opiejeanne

    The history of Delmonico’s is fascinating in and of itself.

    Trivia: In the early 1850s, Lorenzo Delmonico lost his shirt (and very nearly the family business) by heavily investing in a scheme to drill for oil in Brooklyn. Forced into bankruptcy, when the time came to put the restaurant up for auction, the barons of Wall Street, who were regular customers, banded together to see that not a single bid was made, then lent Lorenzo enough money to cover debts, continue in business and pay off the loans from the restaurant profits.

  169. 169.

    Bobby Thomson

    Seems like they perceive this, consciously or not, as their last chance to prod Trump and his fellow Repubs into increasingly spectacular / dangerous stunts, before the grownups show up and shut down the party…

    2016 called and wants its counterfactual theories about the inherently racist and demagogic Republican party back. “Oooh, Lucy will let me kick the football Trump’s cooked this time. This time feels different!”

  171. 171.

    Lee

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Also my understanding is they are (for the most part) unarmed. They are there only to provide logistical support. There might be MP’s running around armed and depending on where they are stationed there might be some armed guards at the entrance.

  172. 172.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl Rofer: Holy shit, that is one of the most disheartening things I have read since Trump was elected. It was very well done and appears to be very sound advice, but damn, it’s heartbreaking to see that our military and our country have come to this. One more failed institution.

  173. 173.

    tokyokie

    @gene108: Late to the thread, as usual, but wanted to wish you a full recovery. If it’s also speedy, so much the better. And yeah, it hurts now to do so, but the quicker you get to ambulating, the quicker and more fully you’ll recover.

  174. 174.

    Miss Bianca

    @WaterGirl: I had the opposite reaction. I found myself heartened that *someone* of sufficient military chops and gravitas was willing to say what Yingling said, and I hope to hell everyone who gets sent to the border – from grunts to senior officers – reads what he says and takes it to heart.

  176. 176.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @gene108: In some obscure restaurant, a patron who ordered the steak & kidney pie is complaining loudly to the maitre d’. /organleggers /:p

    Srsly, heal! Heal, ah say! Heal well, heal completely, heal in all good time – if you can’t heal fast, at least don’t heal half-fast…. :p

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