Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

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

In after Baud. Damn.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

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

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: POP! Culture

Thursday Morning Open Thread: POP! Culture

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(Probably everybody who’d wanted to watch this already knows about it, but just in case… )

***********
I was never a hardcore Marvel fan (even if I did write my first letter to the editor to The Submariner), so I’m gonna let someone better equipped cover Stan Lee’s cultural contributions. But the many eulogies written to celebrate him make me a little sad about the passing of a venerable NYCer joke.

Lots of people have mentioned Lee’s catchphrase, Excelsior! — Ever upward. It’s also the motto on the New York state seal… and the word for a now-obsolete form of packing material, the wood shavings commonly used before the invention of styrofoam.

When I was growing up in New York City, the standing quip was that this high-flown word was chosen as a euphemism, because the heraldry folk didn’t think Bullshit! would look well on official documents.

I guarantee that Stan Lee, New Yorker, knew this joke. But apparently it’s no longer in circulation among the global pop-culture cognoscenti.

(Walt Handelsman via GoComics.com)
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Reader Interactions

116Comments

  2. 2.

    Cermet

    Morning Jackals; sheet, snow then rain (hopefully!) here. Stan (the man) Lee was a progressive in race and equality but otherwise, I know little of him and far less on comics – never a fan of that entertainment media.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Couple of items which caught the eye.

    1) Vindication, of sorts, for the late Peter van de Kamp, not only a dedicated and renowned astronomer but also, as personal encounters confirmed, an all around wonderfully eccentric and ebullient true gentleman.

    At last, a planet for Barnard’s Star

    2) One supposes Goat McNuggets didn’t test well.

    US fast-food giant McDonald’s, famed for its beef-based Big Mac burgers, on Tuesday said it will open its first vegetarian-only restaurant anywhere in the world in India next year. Source

  6. 6.

    Nicole

    @NotMax: Back in the late 90’s/early aughts, some McD’s offered a vegetarian burger. I was really disappointed when they took them off the menu.

  10. 10.

    p.a.

    @Nicole: Any one remember BK’s (original) Yumbo? Ham and cheese that was their only product that tasted like actual (human) food. They brought it back once, but it was a big fail; not even close.

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    @Zzyzx: I think the ones at the McD’s here (in NYC) were soy, but I’m not sure. It was nice getting a Big Mac made with them, though. I mean, the actual burgers don’t have any flavor of their own; it’s added in chemically, so the soy ones pretty much tasted identical to
    them.

    @p.a.: I don’t remember the Yumbo. Though, as a kid, I loved BK’s. Haven’t been to one in almost 2 decades, but as a kid, BK was my reward for sitting through Mass.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    Later that day, Credico texted Stone asking, “Why can’t you get Trump to come out and say that he would give Julian Assange Asylum[?]” according to the texts obtained by NBC News.

    It would be completely believable to me that Assange did this whole thing to get asylum.

    That’s dumb and selfish enough to be true.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning rikyrah and morning crew ?!

    @Doc H: I see a cute little face but can’t quite guess what it is?

    @Cermet: sleeting here too, but they’re calling it snow and saying it could get heavy this morning. Of all the weather, I hate sleet the most.

  17. 17.

    Patricia Kayden

    I wonder how pissed off Conservatives are that Stan Lee was such a huge SJW. Lol. They’re so out of touch with popular culture.

  21. 21.

    Nancy

    When I was in elementary school, friends had Marvel comics and I became a fan. I’d only read DC up til then and Superman was so boring.
    Marvel was a whole new world. Does anyone else remember the Merry Marvel Marching Society? Inspired silliness–at least to my 10 year old sensibility.
    And the angst of the troubled heroes. I favored the Thing of Fantastic Four for emotional drama over Spiderman. Thing raged against fate while Spidey complained.
    Stan Lee was brilliant and irreverent. I have fond memories of his work. He always gave credit to the artists and that impressed me then and now.

  23. 23.

    Platonailedit

    Ex-GOP A.G. in Arizona who's now a Democrat: "The extremism of the current Republican Party is a losing strategy for the future. In the Southwest in particular, where we’re talking about a diverse population … people just aren’t going to put up with it." https://t.co/0qDmuD6Gl7— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 15, 2018

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nancy: There’s been a lot of drama over the years over Lee taking credit he didn’t necessarily deserve, particularly from Kirby and Ditko. But he was clearly a major creative force at Marvel in any case.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I read the first chapter of a new book to my writer group last night. Got good feedback that I’ll work on today after I walk on a treadmill for a while at rehab. After today I have only three more weeks, so they’re starting weight training with me today. I think I’ll miss it when I’m done.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    There’s a HuffPo story that says the anti-Pelosi faction is still trying to organise Democrats’ votes against her for Speaker, even if she is the party’s nominee. If she loses, doesn’t the Republican nominee win?

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: I wondered about that. No, the rules are that the winner has to have a majority of votes, not a plurality. If there’s no majority winner they go to multiple ballots.

  29. 29.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    All Republicans win. She’s a very potent symbol of everything they are against.

    ETA: The only thing Nancy has ever done wrong is to be Nancy.

  35. 35.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Trump is up and tweeting

    The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

    Seventeen minutes later, he finishes the “thought.”

    ….care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

    What’s he talking about when he says Mueller worked for Obama for 8 years? Mueller was FBI Director when Obama took office, finished his term, had it extended, and then left and was replaced by Comey. Remember him, Donnie?

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    It seems like it’s actually from Pelosi’s Right but they’re pretending it’s from the Left? Tim Ryan is in no way “on the Left”.

    This whole thing has been handled incredibly dishonestly. It has the feel of deceptive marketing.

  42. 42.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I heard an interview with Ryan last week. He said he wouldn’t run against Pelosi, he wouldn’t vote against her, but he didn’t support her. Can it get any squishier than that???

  43. 43.

    SFAW

    For all you Eeyores talking about honorable Dems Moulton and Ryan trying to unseat shrieking harpy (who has an e-mails/server problem, I betcha) Nancy Pelosi, here’s some good news to counterbalance things:

    According to the CNN, if Never Trump-er Trump Ass-kisser Lindsey Graham becomes chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has vowed to investigate the FBI’s investigation of Russia and Hitlary, no doubt in an effort to find The Truth. I hear that he’s going to make Issa and Gowdy Honorary Senators so that they can ask Hitlary about Benghaziiii!!!! when he holds hearings.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    LWF (Leading While Female)

    It’s NOT THAT!!!!!

    It’s just that Ryan and Moulton and all the other Honorable Dems have serious and legitimate concerns that Pelosi doesn’t have the proper balance: they sincerely believe that, where most of the fair-minded persons have a Y chromosome to balance out their darker impulses, Pelosi has two X chromosomes, and therefore will be too much of a …. hmmm, what would that make her? It’ll come to me.

    PS: Fuck them all, if they continue this vendetta.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    He’s truly awful. Just such a phony. I saw his name and I thought “oh, that’s not a good group if he’s in it”. IMO he has a chip on his shoulder because his brand of Democrat is in decline. He’ll have less power going forward for a REALLY practical reason- he didn’t get white working class men to swing towards Democrats. That’s what that faction of the Party had to do and they failed. They didn’t deliver voters. They can’t just insist that Democrats chase white working class men- they have to show they can get them. They haven’t done that.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: It’s definitely a right-wing insurgency. These are reps from red districts who pledged to oppose Pelosi because their constituents hate her. I guess this comes with the territory.

    My understanding is that there’s an intra-party nomination vote and then one of the nominees has to get a majority vote (not a plurality). But members voting “present” can complicate things. It’s not clear that these people would actually be willing to throw the election to Kevin McCarthy, though I suppose a few of them might.

  57. 57.

    Skepticat

    Although I’m not unhappy about missing the wintery weather in New England, there’s a part of me that would like to get to Maine, find Bruce Poliquin, hold his head in a toilet until all the ranked-choice votes are counted–and then flush.

  59. 59.

    MattF

    Definitely white frozen stuff falling from the sky. Gonna be indoors today– which is too bad since today the condo’s sprinkler system is being repaired, so all water will be turned off. No hiding down the street in the Library, I guess.

    Gotta go fill the bathtub.

  60. 60.

    JPL

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You left out the first tweet about the White House running smoothly. When you include that one it still doesn’t make sense.
    My predictions are always wrong, but by trump’s tweets Donnie Jr. is about to be indicted.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think it’s a little more than that. There’s really two camps- the group that says they can and should chase Trump voters and the group that says if they do that they’ll have to diss their own base- the actual base- the one that comes out for them. The second group won the midterms so they’re ascendant (rightfully so- they won). In my view Pelosi’s brand of Democrat – diverse, better educated, more female, more urban and suburban- won and so she should remain leader. She better represents the actual base of the Party than Tim Ryan does.

  62. 62.

    Immanetize

    @Kay: I still am amazed at Ryan’s flip use of the phrase “Dago red wine.” What’s next, is he going to “Jew down the Republicans?”. Get “Gypped by the cafeteria lady?”. I really dislike Ryan.

  64. 64.

    SFAW

    @Skepticat:

    I imagine Poliquin would have been all-in for ranked choice if the positions were reversed. And it was so un-American for the Dems to spring that on him, just days after his coronation the election

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @MattF: The GOP actually, officially ran against Nancy Pelosi and they lost. Why are people considering giving them the victory that they just lost?

  67. 67.

    Immanetize

    Meanwhile — weather report: as I drive west from Boston to Binghamton New York today, our snow starts at about 3 pm….

  68. 68.

    MattF

    @Amir Khalid: I’m pretty sure there are multiple ballots until someone gets a majority. Note that there is no leading opposition candidate that everyone agrees on, so while Pelosi may not be super-duper-popular, there isn’t really any serious alternative.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    She better represents the actual base of the Party than Tim Ryan does.

    Yeah but white working class guys like me are more important.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Though the person most often mentioned as a challenger seems to be Martha Fudge, a black female Rep from Cleveland (but not young, though she’s younger than Pelosi). That might be one way to thread the needle.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: The thing is, a lot of these Blue Dog types also ran against Pelosi so they could get elected–they’re figuring their constituents hate her for being a craaaaazy San Francisco liberal and will punish them for supporting her.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Uber has posted a loss of more than $1bn (£780m) in its latest quarter as growth in bookings continued to slow in the run-up to its stock market flotation next year.

    The San Francisco-based ride-sharing firm, valued at $76bn, is under pressure to improve its financial performance before the IPO. It lost $1.07bn in the three months to September, a 20% increase from $891m in the previous quarter.

    The firm, which has never made a profit, could target a valuation of $120bn when it lists on the New York stock market next year – three times the value of the carmaker Ford. Uber counts Japan’s SoftBank and Saudi Arabia’s royal family among its biggest investors.

    Words fail.

  81. 81.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    And have class?

    This isn’t directed at Ozark (really!), but I used to say about meself “I got LOTS of class, unfortunately it’s all low.”

  86. 86.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’m listening to Rachel Maddow from last night. She’s talking about Whittaker’s involvement with that company that was shut down and ordered to pay a fine for fraud. She says she’s hearing that Whittaker defied the court order and refused to pay back his share of the profits. He’s also being investigated for issuing legal threats against customers who complained.

    ETA: This company is, btw, being investigated by the FBI which, under the circumstances, is awkward.

  88. 88.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: Unseat Nancy Pelosi after Democrats retook the House while voting to reconfirm Schumer as Senate Minority Leader although Democrats lost seats in the Senate. Doesn’t make a lick of sense. The anti-Pelosi furor is Republican-fed.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    This.
    They have no coattails.
    I like Sherrod Brown, but he had NO coattails.
    You think that Lucy McBath would have won without Abrams ‘ coattails?
    You think that we would have gotten rid of Pete Sessions, elected the first two Latina women from Texas and completely reshaped the Texas judiciary without Beto’s coattails?

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @Major Major Major Major: Adding — his whole quote demonstrates just the type of phone white giy crap Kay describes:

    “You can still maintain a level of pragmatism even though you may drink, not dago red wine in Youngstown, but some kind of fancy Napa Valley wine,” said Ryan. “You can still understand what’s going on in those people’s lives.”

    #FiveWhiteGuys indeed!

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I feel like Abrams and Beto and Gillum were an earthquake. It changes things. They put together a group of voters who can win in some places Democrats haven’t even considered. In my mind they won the argument w/in the Democratic Party fair and square and they should be ascendant. Sherrod even had some problems. He lost counties he has won in the past. He might want to stay in the senate just to hold the seat for Democrats.

  105. 105.

    Haroldo

    @Matt McIrvin:

    @Kay: It’s definitely a right-wing insurgency. These are reps from red districts who pledged to oppose Pelosi because their constituents hate her. I guess this comes with the territory

    Except Moulton is from an ostensibly blue district, and he, unfortunately, is my rep. But I know this area – there is a lot of under-the-surface misogyny swirling about, witness Scott Brown’s election. I can see an ego such as Moulton’s melding quite nicely with this misogyny.

    I called his office yesterday to voice my disapproval.

  106. 106.

    O. Felix Culpa

    I recall this discussion/challenge to Pelosi’s leadership the last time around… and she won handily. I suspect the same will happen again.

  107. 107.

    Platonailedit

    @O. Felix Culpa: Yup. A woman who was adept in corralling her flock of dem cats for dem bills has a card or two up her sleeve when it comes to her own election. It’s all white noise now.

  111. 111.

    John 2.0

    Ouch, that cartoon. Yesterday I spent a few hours throwing out several hundred comics damaged when my house flooded. That included a bunch of Captain America and Iron Man comics.

  113. 113.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Matt McIrvin: Catspaw for the #FiveMelaninDeficientAssholes – they’re fluffing her ego thinking they’d call the shots through her. Waddabunchafuckwads. None of ’em could lift Nancy Smash!’s gavel, much less wield it.

  114. 114.

    Kenneth Guffnagle

    Stan Lee was not quoting the state motto of New York, nor is “Excelsior” by itself a Latin word for “onward and upward.”
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (pretty ridiculous) poem “Excelsior” was in every schoolbook (including, no doubt, Stan Lee’s) up through the middle of the 20th century. That is what he’s quoting.

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