Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Come on, man.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / “One does want a HINT of color…”

Reader Interactions

199Comments

  1. 1.

    Sab

    Those are really amazingly attractive. Will you allow anyone to use the drawers after they are installed?

  2. 2.

    Gin & Tonic

    What’s up this evening? Probably early to bed, since toddler grandkids are tiring for somebody my age. But since I never knew a grandpa, I’m enjoying the hell out of being one.

    Yeah, they’re here for about a week, as my daughter and SIL prepare their house for moving.

  3. 3.

    khead

    Love the drawer pulls and nice reference. Mrs. Khead drops that line all the time. Of course, it usually involves some socks that no one can see.

    This evening is work and college hoops in the background.

  4. 4.

    lamh36

    Goodness I read the title on twitter and was like…uah…

    LOL

    Anyhoo, I’m getting ready to watch the 50th Annual Image Awards LIVE on TVOne tonight.

    8pm CST…who else is watching?

  11. 11.

    hells littlest angel

    Those are quite stunning. Tell us more.

    Oddly, to me they look like they might have been designed by Charles Burns.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    The knobs are beautiful!
    I’m watching Jane Eyre the one with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles on the local PBA channel. Even though the backdrops are crappy, I am finding it creepier than modern films.

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    Those are gorgeous and almost match my tile, which is original to the house built in 1950. Housemate B and the teen spent the whole weekend two weeks ago digging out the old dirty and cracked grout with tiny diamond-coated Dremel tools and putting in fresh white grout. It looks fabulous!

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Saw Die Walküre this afternoon. There was a lengthy intermission feature on Wagner’s use of brass, which made me think of, and miss, efg. He would have loved that segment.

  16. 16.

    Sab

    @lamh36: Not me. Spouse controls the remote. grr.

    In his defense, I had a black and white tv ( I got at a yard sale) and no cable when we got married. Cable was a condition for him to move in. So I have never had a vote. I have to watch my favorite stuff during 3 am insomnia bouts.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    @JPL:

    Jane Eyre is supposed to be at least a little bit creepy, what with the crazy scorned wife in the attic and all. Plus Fontaine often brought a touch of masochism to her roles.

  19. 19.

    SFBayAreaGal

    So pretty Betty.

    Just got back from Pacifica beach. Went to an open house in Pacifica that is an ocean front house with views and sounds of the ocean. Only asking a cool $1.5 million for it.

    At home now watching the SF Giants playing the San Diego Padres.

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    The most religious group in America, by all studies, is the Democratic base-Black women!;???
    So.phucking.cancelled

    Evangelicals helped get Trump into the White House. Mayor Pete believes the religious left will get him out.

    “The Democratic Party has sometimes become distant from religion.”??

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/03/29/evangelicals-helped-get-trump-into-white-house-pete-buttigieg-believes-religious-left-will-get-him-out/?utm_term=.76a0cbffef5d

  25. 25.

    tobie

    What wonderful colorful draw pulls! They’ll pop against the white cabinet background.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Mom went to see that today as well. To keep the scales balanced she also went this week to a production of Fiddler on the Roof – in Yiddish.

    ;)

  29. 29.

    frosty

    We went with pewter knobs and pulls on our white cabinets. I’m rethinking that now. :-)

  30. 30.

    guachi

    @rikyrah: Did you even read the article?

    “As we talk of the need for a religious left, we should remember that the black church has been [putting faith into action] for quite some time,” he said.

  36. 36.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    I heard a feature earlier this week (probably NPR, but don’t recall which program) on the Yiddish-language FotR. Sounds like great fun!

  37. 37.

    Sab

    I am sort of retiring in May. Aside from the spouse and the garden, should I focus more on Jane Austen or JK Rowling? I have only read a couple of Austen books, and no Harry Potter. I love her grown-up stuff.

  41. 41.

    West of the Rockies

    @Sab:

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that a wizard in possession of a good wand must be in want of a wife…

    Why not both!

  42. 42.

    Jay

    Train is a good boy,

    “Everywhere, people are expanding,” DeMatteo says. “We can try to figure out areas of potential overlap between humans and wildlife. We can identify areas that need more work, areas that are great corridors, or areas that are kind of lost to the cause.”

    Train was originally a rescue dog from the Humane Society. He first entered a program to train drug-detection dogs, but it didn’t work out.

    “He failed out of narcotics school because he was too energetic,” DeMatteo says. “He was like a bull in a china closet.”

    Train is almost 12 and a rescue dog from the Humane Society.

    So she found Train a more suitable career path.

    At the time, DeMatteo was looking for dogs to go to the Argentine province of Misiones to work on a research project. Since Train already knew the basics of drug detection, he was a viable candidate.

    As it turns out, Train couldn’t care less that he was searching for poop instead of drugs — all he wanted was a ball to play with at the end.

    His high energy may have hampered him in narcotics school, but it was a welcome trait in Argentina, where he trekked through vast stretches of wilderness. Last year, Train covered about 1,000 kilometers of Argentinian forest in search of animal droppings.

    “Train was just a machine,” DeMatteo says. “We just switched him to use all that energy and search really big areas and find this poop for us.”

    https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/friday-night-soother_29.html?m=1

    AOC is good:

    “Inglis might believe climate change is an urgent problem, but the Green New Deal’s inclusion of universal basic income was a bridge too far. Inglis fulfilled his designated “both sides” role by suggesting there is now a T-party of the left, and the forum on climate change was the mirror image of a Trump rally. Universal basic income should wait.

    A few catcalls erupted from the otherwise patient audience. Someone shouted that Inglis was a moron.

    “Hey, hey, hey, hey, that’s unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez responded curtly, calling down the heckler. Pivoting immediately to Inlgis, she continued, “And that’s the difference between me and Trump.”

    https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-difference-between-me-and-trump-by.html?m=1

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Hah! I listened to it not half an hour ago (could recite the entire thing in my sleep, but it’s always a treat to hear AR her own self). Had sent it to my guests today, who turned out to be Wagner Wirgins, but adored Walküre!

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sab:

    I third the idea of reading both. Austen’s language can be a little difficult for modern readers, so alternating her books with Rowling’s will give you a little break.

  49. 49.

    JoyceH

    Bragging. I took the dog for a walk down the road.

    That’s a brag because that’s something I haven’t been able to do for years. Oh, I could walk, but it was painful – my right knee would pop when I bent and straightened it. My knee guy says easy solution, let’s replace the knee! I didn’t want to do that, so eventually I went to a physical therapist, and yeah, I have arthritis in both knees, but the popping had nothing to do with the arthritis. It was caused by my knee cap being pulled off track by a tight IT band. She worked on it for a few months, and voila! My knee doesn’t pop anymore! I had to be retrained, though, in walking without a limp, because I’d limped for at least five years. But now I’m pop-free and limp-free!

    Now I just need to work on stamina and distance. My current walk is about… well, maybe two tenths of a mile. But I couldn’t do it before and now I can! It makes me feel younger.

  50. 50.

    West of the Rockies

    @NotMax:

    I loved Borge’s operatic send-ups, too!

    “She’s a big soprano!”

    I saw him perform in about 1986. He was a hoot!

  53. 53.

    CatFacts

    @Sab: Another vote for both! From what I’ve heard, Rowling’s post-Harry Potter works in the Harry Potter universe (Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts) aren’t nearly as good as the original series. Haven’t seen/read those myself. The first two Harry Potter books are for younger readers but the books get more complex fast. Austen is great, of course.

  54. 54.

    Sab

    @Mnemosyne: I am okay with old language. I actually adore Richardson’s “Pamela” and I struggled through and loved “Liaisons Dangereuses” in French in college. But there is a lot of JKRowling , and not much Austen. So spacing is important.

  56. 56.

    Ohio Mom

    @guachi: There is probably a congregational ratio of Democrats to Republicans that determines how political a congregation gets. Go to a white evangelical church, overwhelming/if not all Republican and actively involved in right wing efforts; African American church, overwhelming/if not all Democratic and actively involved in liberal efforts.

    Then you can go to someplace like my Reform synagogue — and I suspect the same of many predominantly white mainline churches — and the congregation is mixed, and the Rabbi quashes anything remotely partisan because he is afraid of the potential fallout.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, if too many people get riled up, some might leave, and with it their due$.

    We are told that our congregation is about timeless Jewish observance, and that it is against the tax law for us to be involved in partisan politics (which is true, though this law does not seem to deter the Evsnglicals).

    The end result is we do not even take a stand on local issues (such state-wide issues on school funding, criminal justice reform, etc.).

    I think that is why it looks like lefties aren’t religious, and why there is no white religious left.

    Somebody more ambitious then I am should go check on how politically active Mayor Pete’s Episcopal church is (and supporting the local soup kitchen and food bank doesn’t count, even my wimpy Rabbi does that).

  57. 57.

    thruppence

    @Sab: If you’re considering JK Rowling, you might also want to give the late great Terry Pratchett a try. Maybe start with “Equal Rites”.

  58. 58.

    JoyceH

    And now I’m amused at the up-thread mentions of Jane Austen and JK Rowling, because in a month or so, I’ll be publishing the first of my Regency Mage series, which is sort of like ‘what if Jane Austen wrote Harry Potter?’ Of course, it doesn’t have the Potterverse people and places, but it’s an Austenian fantasy series.

    Keep an eye out for “Mary Bennet and the Bingley Codex”, to be followed by “Mary Bennet and the Wickham Artifact”. Currently working on “Mary Bennet and the Beast of Rosings Park”…

  60. 60.

    Barbara

    @Sab: Once upon, after maybe my third read through Emma, I remember feeling jealous that there were people reading it for the first time. So my suggestion is to read Emma last, and very slowly, paying a lot of attention to the details. I will say no more!

  64. 64.

    Sab

    @CatFacts: I haven’t read anything Harry Potter related. I really love her Cormorant Strike detective novels. Amazing, morally complicated main characters and also interesting plots. That aren’t, to me, in any way obvious. I also loved “The Casual Visitor”. I have a stepdaughter who grew up in foster care and that book actually made me cry. For everybody, the kid and the social worker both.

  65. 65.

    Ohio Mom

    @JoyceH: Congrats! On walking without pain and all the hard work that got you to this point.

    Doctors often seem to forget that PTs exist. Or maybe health insurers ding them for too many PT referrals. The times I’ve thought (correctly) that I needed PT, I had to be quite firm with the referring doctors.

  67. 67.

    debbie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Great article, and I love her attitude! I know squat about opera, but that clip of her Brunhilda during the interview was something else!

  69. 69.

    Mary G

    @CatFacts: @Sab: Second CF’s take that the HP books start out pretty kiddish, but get more complicated and nuanced as they go along. They are pretty quick reads. I finally got “Lethal White” from the library – was #389th in line when I requested it and really enjioyed it.

  70. 70.

    JoyceH

    @Ohio Mom:

    Doctors often seem to forget that PTs exist. Or maybe health insurers ding them for too many PT referrals. The times I’ve thought (correctly) that I needed PT, I had to be quite firm with the referring doctors.

    I think everyone should see a physical therapist before getting a joint replacement! The arthritis is still there, I don’t think there’s a scrap of cartilage left in these knees, but if I can do without it, which whack out the whole joint?

  71. 71.

    debbie

    @Mnemosyne:

    P.D. James wrote a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (can’t remember the name) “in the manner of” Jane Austen. I wish she hadn’t.

  75. 75.

    Ninedragonspot

    @SiubhanDuinne: I listened to the broadcast of Die Walküre on Monday. Though the singing had uneven patches, I found much to enjoy. Nonetheless, after each Ring opera I am more and more getting the feeling of being stuck at the world’s worst family reunion. After Monday night I had a vision of myself stranded on a desert island with nothing to read but Cosima’s diaries. So today I accompanied the husband to see Captain Marvel, which was Wagnerian enough (in the pejorative sense) for me.

  76. 76.

    eclare

    Just finished Season One of The Good Place, what a wonderfully creative show! Tried it because several jackals here recommended it. Starting Season Two.

  77. 77.

    Barbara

    @JoyceH: This is awesome. Based on the people I know, hip replacements are more likely to provide relief and meet expectations than knee replacements, probably because they relieve pain but don’t restore 100% function. Let’s hear it for continuous improvement.

  79. 79.

    plato

    A welcome change from the ‘radicalization of the west’.

    Anti-corruption candidate Zuzana Caputova has won Slovakia’s presidential election, making her the country’s first female head of state.

    Ms Caputova, who has almost no political experience, defeated high-profile diplomat Maros Sefcovic from the governing party in a second round run-off vote.

    She framed the election as a struggle between good and evil.

    The election follows the murder of an investigative journalist last year.

    With almost all votes counted, she has won about 58% to Mr Sefcovic’s 42%.

    Aged 45, a divorcee and mother of two, she is a member of the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, which has no seats in parliament.

    In a country where same-sex marriage and adoption is not yet legal, her liberal views promote LGBTQ+ rights.

  80. 80.

    lamh36

    @RaqiyahMays
    1m1 minute ago
    More
    “As for those white supremacist haters who have threatened to kill me and my family and my staff, I’ve gotten four of them convicted. If you come for me, I’m coming for you. I have the gavel and I’m not afraid to use it.” – Maxine Waters #imageawards50 #NAACPImageAwards

  81. 81.

    danielx

    Snow. Again.

    There’s a place down the road where I pull over and stop to hear the spring peepers. Poor little guys….

  82. 82.

    zhena gogolia

    @Sab:

    But you’ll go back and read the Austen novels again and again. I’ve been doing it all my life.

    Jane Eyre too!

  83. 83.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    Death Comes to Pemberley. I’ve never brought myself to read it, but the TV version was kind of amusing, with Matthew Goode, Jenna Coleman, Eleanor Tomlinson, and James Norton.

  84. 84.

    Mary G

    This is going to cause a Twitler meltdown – NY Post reports that a whole book about how much he cheats at golf will be out Tuesday.

    “To say ‘Donald Trump cheats’ is like saying ‘Michael Phelps swims,’” writes Rick Reilly in the new book “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump” (Hachette Book Group), out Tuesday. “He cheats at the highest level. He cheats when people are watching and he cheats when they aren’t. He cheats whether you like it or not. He cheats because that’s how he plays golf … if you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.”

    Reilly, a former Sports Illustrated columnist who has played with Trump in the past, spoke to dozens of players — both amateur and professional — to recount some of the president’s worst cons on the course, starting with his declared handicap of 2.8.

    In layman’s terms, the lower the handicap, the better the player. Jack Nicklaus, winner of a record 18 major golf titles and generally considered the greatest golfer in the history of the game, has a handicap of 3.4.

    Nicklaus’ handicap is listed on the same Golf Handicap and Information Network website used by Trump, where players post their scores.

    “If Trump is a 2.8,” writes Reilly, “Queen Elizabeth is a pole vaulter.”

    It goes on to describe things like throwing another player’s ball into a bunker.

  86. 86.

    Shana

    @Sab: When you’re done with Austen and Rowling, you can move on to Trollope who wrote 40-something books.

  87. 87.

    Julia Grey

    Austen’s great on re-read, too, I think. More than contemporary authors, because I tend to read them mostly for the story, the narrative action. In Austen you get those little raised eyebrows and winks of prose, some of which you only get the second time through.

    Oh, and YES to Trollope, too! Great stories.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @eclare: Just finished Season One of The Good Place, what a wonderfully creative show! Tried it because several jackals here recommended it. Starting Season Two.

    Is it on Hulu or Netflix? I can’t find a complete version of season two

    @debbie: I miss Adam Dalgliesh. And Inspector Morse. Fortunately, Ian Rankin seems to want John Rebus to hang on for a while

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Shana: it was PD James who pointed me to Trollope, with a reference to Barchester Towers. I’ve read the Barsetshire Chronicles, one of these days I’m gonna get around to Palliser books

  92. 92.

    zhena gogolia

    @Barbara:

    Hard to say. I might recommend Doctor Thorne, unless you really want to get into it with The Way We Live Now. Or if you want to start the Pallisers, start with Can You Forgive Her? Doctor Thorne would be the lightest lifting.

  94. 94.

    Jay

    ““Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive and leading donor to President Donald Trump’s campaign and former charity, resigned as administrator of the Small Business Administration, a senior administration official confirmed Friday.”

    Rats, sinking ship,…….

  96. 96.

    West of the Rockies

    @Mary G:

    I can hear him already: “I don’t need to cheat, okay? I’m a terrific golfer, everybody says so. This Reilly person–such a loser–has no idea what he’s talking about, okay?”

  97. 97.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I adored Roy Marsden as Dalgleish. And Marsden was far and away the best Mr Chips I’ve ever seen (1984 version of Goodbye, Mr Chips). I’ve always been annoyed that it’s never been available on DVD, because it really is orders of magnitude better than any other film/TV adaptation.

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Have fun with them. My niece and nephew are 4½ and just turning 3, respectively, and Uncle Steep has a hard time keeping up with them. But it’s a good kind of tired!

  100. 100.

    smintheus

    This thorough going demolition of Pete Buttigieg’s self hype is a thing to behold. Robinson goes through Buttigieg’s book chapter by chapter outlining what the mayor does and does not profess an interest in; he brings the receipts, and it’s devastating. There is so much here that is worth quoting, but his conclusion is solid advice that applies equally to all the candidates:

    Demand the evidence. Examine the record. We have got to learn to see through this stuff. You have to look at what they did and said before it was politically opportune to say what they’re saying now. Five minutes ago, Pete Buttigieg was “the management consultant making the South Bend sewers run on time.” Now he’s suddenly a radical who want to pack the Supreme Court. From Mitt Romney to Eugene Debs in a single news cycle.

  102. 102.

    Mike J

    @smintheus: It was when I read him referring disparagingly to “social justice warriors” that I wrote him off for good. We don’t need 4chan’s favorite Dem leading our party.

  105. 105.

    Amir Khalid

    @Sab:
    Yes! Do read the Harry Potter series. An old-school hero quest, a wonderful turn-of-the millennium Bildungsroman, and a manual of political activism for today’s young people. (It’s a pity that the Goblet of Fire subplot with Hermione showing how to get it wrong got left out of the movie.)

  106. 106.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @smintheus:

    I will read this piece with an open mind, I promise, but from your excerpt it has a nasty eau de Wilmer aroma to it. I am distressed to see this level of negativity directed at any legitimate Democratic candidate at this point.

  107. 107.

    smintheus

    @Mike J: What kind of a person sneers at people who are demonstrating on behalf of janitors receiving a living wage? I guess, the kind of guy who never notices the poor in his very midst.

  109. 109.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @zhena gogolia: Yeah, yay Slovakia (groan). She has almost no political experience & her party holds no, zero, zip, nada seats in their legislature. Pure protest vote; recipe for disaster.

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack

    @JPL:

    It’s the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography. I try to tell the yoot cineastes this, but they just won’t listen. B&W turns them right off, for some reason.

  111. 111.

    smintheus

    @SiubhanDuinne: He just analyzes Buttigieg’s book for its assumptions and blind spots…which are huge and disturbing. The primaries are for sorting out what the candidates are genuinely like and which candidate(s) care about the things we care about. That means more than just puff pieces that package all candidates as all things to all of us. It also means some take downs of phonies, the kind we wish had been produced about another phony populist who’s now installed in the White House.

  113. 113.

    ThresherK

    Before reading what these were, I thought “intricately iced sugar cookies”.

    (Cause: I can bake cookies and cakes very nicely but can’t decorate for crap. My favorite style I call “rustico”.)

  114. 114.

    CatFacts

    For the Austen fans who haven’t read anything by Elizabeth Gaskell yet, she’s great, too.

  115. 115.

    ThresherK

    @Jay: Oh, gawd, I hope she doesn’t start making noises about running for office back here in CT. (Two-time loser using every shitstain weapon in the R arsenal.)

    The thing is, before this announcement, I forgot she was down there. That means she hasn’t been as bad as (so many names here, like Ajit Pai of the FCC). Wow, has she done anything to publicly embarrass herself or her office?

  116. 116.

    debbie

    @zhena gogolia:

    There was nothing wrong with the storyline. The language was just off, I thought.

    I met her once (worked at her US publisher at the time). She was genuinely charming.

  117. 117.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steeplejack:
    Because black-and-white movies have all but died out, not everyone appreciates that black-and-white cinematography is a branch of the art quite separate from colour cinematography, with its own quirks and nuances. Many think of black-and-white as merely something made obsolete by colour movies. I know someone who refused to see David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, which I consider a masterful tribute to a heroic man, because it wasn’t in colour.

  118. 118.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jay:
    I always wondered, WTF does Linda McMahon know about small businesses? She’s only ever run a very big one.

  122. 122.

    ThresherK

    @Amir Khalid: Tangential idea:

    I love B&W and wonder if the “language” of it (composition, lighting, cinematography, other terms I don’t exactly know) is still being taught officially, or is still being learned.

  123. 123.

    zhena gogolia

    I find it really strange that for some reason there have been about a million commenters today breathlessly sharing the latest scoop about how terrible Buttigieg is. Could someone be coordinating these communications?

  124. 124.

    chris

    FYWP!!! blog’s been borked, for me, all day. My comment above is in answer to Amir with a quote and an enthusiastic response. Please remove because there is no edit function.There are no pictures and the up/down buttons are gone.

  130. 130.

    zhena gogolia

    @smintheus:

    There’s something fishy going on. You are the latest in a long series of commenters today coming here to share some big news about how horrible Buttigieg is. I smell a rat. It’ll be Booker or Harris or Klobuchar next.

    I prefer to focus on how horrible Trump is.

  131. 131.

    Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    WWF was a small buisness when she took it over, having been replaced by real sporting events like MMA and competing leagues.

    It fell back to the early Saturday AM tv and cable spot that “Pro” wrestling occupied in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s for kids and innsomiac’s.

    In 2016 their net was $33.8 million.

  133. 133.

    Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    All but one of the Insane Clown POSus’s former Minions have been moved to Insane Clown POSus PAC’s.

    They get paid money for nothing as a bribe and sign semi-enforcable NDA’s so they can’t dish dirt, ( but can be subpena’d for criming).

  134. 134.

    ThresherK

    @Amir Khalid: It’s akin to “cine-dance” for me. That’s the art of the old studio system (Hollywood and elsewhere) and all the things they learned about dancing for the camera.

    At a certain point all those folks retired and (many have) passed on. There’s a wealth of knowledge I think is forgotten, which would nicely supplement modern musicals.

  135. 135.

    smintheus

    @Amir Khalid: My impression is that the really great B&W films – not the great mass of forgettable ones cranked out with little distinction – were made in collaboration with people who were regarded in the profession as individual geniuses who had figured their way out of some of the limitations of standard film technique. Their skills were never taught and rarely passed around among the pros. Those were their calling cards, what made them valuable to film makers, so they kept them close to the vest. If you wanted deep focus in low lighting for example there was a short list of people who everybody knew could pull off some amazing tricks. You’d imagine nearly all of that acquired expertise was lost after the 1960s.

  136. 136.

    lamh36

    Oh, hey… Corey Booker and Kamala Harris showed up to the NAACP awards to talk about the importance of voting in the next election

  138. 138.

    normal liberal

    @zhena gogolia:
    I’ve read it – James’s rendering of the Darcy marriage is somewhat leaden, which is a drawback for a book set at Pemberly and other Austenian locations. Not my favorite P.D. James, or my favorite P&P pastiche.

  139. 139.

    smintheus

    @zhena gogolia: I can’t comment on the smells coming from your kitchen. I wrote about a lengthy and detailed new article that analyzed Buttigieg’s own account of himself, because I had just read it. What is suspicious about that? Yesterday we were being told in super seriousness that it was highly suspicious that people were talking about a recent Washington Post profile of Buttigieg. Because all things are suspicious to suspicious people, duh.

  141. 141.

    SFBayAreaGal

    @Ben Cisco: My favorite captain in my favorite Star Trek series. Haven’t seen you posting recently. Hope everything is going well for you.

  142. 142.

    normal liberal

    @smintheus:
    This is Mayor Pete’s first taste of real scrutiny. Plenty of more seasoned politicians have looked at the grind that is the vetting of a rising candidate and have walked away from it. If Buttigieg can’t cope, perhaps he should concentrate on being governor of Indiana before running for president. He has plenty to recommend him, but a small-city mayor hasn’t earned the slot he wants.
    And I say this as a native Midwesterner from a college town one state west.

  143. 143.

    Mary G

    @lamh36: My PC speakers are borked, so I’ll have to watch it a bit later on the tablet. I am highly encouraged by so many Democratic candidates cooperating like Kamala and Cory rather than tearing each other apart.

  144. 144.

    Reboot

    @smintheus: Infrequent commenter here. The name Nathan Robinson almost rang a bell, so I looked him up. Per his Guardian links, he seems to be a Bernie-r than thou, High Sparrow sort of bro. Grain of salt, etc. I don’t like Buttigieg’s “At least he didn’t say America was already great” quotation, but the repetition of this and a few other things makes it seem like it’s being used like the Dean ‘scream’ to drown out whatever he’s saying of substance.

  145. 145.

    Mary G

    @Mary G: More from the Trump cheats at golf book, because I missed the ending.

    He’s even been known to drive his golf cart onto the putting green, an offense Reilly likens to “hanging your laundry in the Sistine Chapel.”

    Quite why Trump cheats is another matter. He is, by all accounts, a very good golfer for his age (even Tiger Woods was impressed) but seems incapable of playing by the rules. Does he even care?

    To that, Reilly offers a simple reply.

    “Golf,” he writes, “is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man.”

    The thought of Twitler in bicycle shorts horrifying, but still that book’s going to leave a mark.

  146. 146.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mary G:
    My laptop speakets are borked too. I’ve found that a good headphone amplifier and a decent pair of headphones will give far better audio than the speakers that come in a laptop.

  147. 147.

    dww44

    @SiubhanDuinne: I very much agree. I’m sick of the disparaging of the Dem candidates at this early stage of the game. There’s Scott Lemieux over at LGM on Biden, there’s a post at No More Mister Nice guy (Make sure to dive into comments for the long one by the Black commenter) and the Mayor Pete ones. it’s all rather discouraging, if only for the fact that it’s a huge depressor of voter enthusiasm. Wouldn’t it be nice at this early stage for all the naysayers to stop saying nay? Just leave it at not saying yes.

  148. 148.

    West of the Rockies

    @smintheus:

    Zhena makes a very good point. Several people have been shitting on Pete. (He’s not my mayor, nor in my state, and not even among my top 3 candidates.)

    Tomorrow the target may be Warren or Abrahms or Harris.

    Is it possible to express an interest in a candidate or two without gutting the others? I’m not directly accusing you personally of doing this. I’ve seen nuanced comments from you here. BUT I have seen a whole lot of shitting over (in no particular order) Biden (too old/white/pervy), Booker (too moderate, too gay-seeming), Harris (too blindly aggressive as a prosecutor/she shtupped Willie Brown), Warren (too old, preachy, shrill)….

    IMO, that’s doing the work for the GOP.

  149. 149.

    smintheus

    @Reboot: Fair point. I looked into Robinson’s background for the same reason, and concluded that he (like most people who write at political blogs) has obvious axes to grind.

    This piece has merit because it analyzes how Buttigieg presents himself in his own words. If the mayor can’t ever acknowledge why people might legitimately be unimpressed with his work for creepy consultants like McKinsey, that is rather revealing of a mindset different from what Buttigieg is trying to sell to the public now.

  150. 150.

    lamh36

    @Mary G: the NAACP has always been at the forefront of voting rights and ensuring voting is fair and balanced for everyone.

    ANY, and I mean ANY Dem politician who can’t be bothered to discuss voting rights or the disenfranchisement of voters of color in an effort not to offend or to “attract” Trump voters can miss me.

  151. 151.

    smintheus

    @West of the Rockies: That’s doing the work of sorting out the candidates. It’s not our job to fluff them. If you don’t think certain criticisms are based in fact or are fair, then say so and make your case. I have serious doubts about a few seemingly over-hyped faux-populists like Buttigieg and O’Rourke, and I think it’s a service to others to draw attention to any serious reporting on them that looks behind the hype. I had similar kinds of doubts about John Edwards back in 2007, and I’m relieved that we barely dodged a bullet with him.

  152. 152.

    eemom

    @smintheus:

    Interesting. I read that article earlier, was likewise impressed at how carefully sourced it was, and was also fascinated by the question: is this guy just a jealous little shit, albeit a very meticulous one, or IS there any actual substantive to his obsessive hatred of PB?

    And I likewise googled the guy. Dorky looking Ph.D. student at Harvard. Yep, real anti-elitist deal.

  153. 153.

    Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    The world has changed a lot, in the last 10 years.

    Climate change effects, the Precairiate expanding, blending and the changes of who’s immigrating, wealth transfer, income stagnation, endless wars of choice, online radicalization, etc.

    In different countries, voters responded differently, and there were often major external actors putting their fingers on the scales.

    The Great Recession and the “fixes” for that saw the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes upwards to the kakistocracy since Ghengis Kahn first rode west.

    And, as it turned out, it’s not a political meritocracy for the most part, just a gaggle of inherited wealth mediocracy’s coasting off wealth worship.

    People are tired of that and arn’t looking for bipartizanship and incrementalism. On some of the issues we ran out of time a decade ago.

    So there’s some “deep digging” taking place.

    Still, the Democrats Freshman Class shows promise and maybe the path forward.

    My nephew Martin got married this fall. The both have what passes for “good jobs” these days, both work second gig economy jobs, have concluded that they will never own a house, never be economically secure, and never have children, unless they can emigrate from Canada to Scandenavia. With all their degree’s, they just might be able to pull it off.

    There’s a war taking place in many countries, and far too few politicians are admitting that.

  154. 154.

    smintheus

    @normal liberal: So far it has been almost nothing but a steady diet of puff pieces about Buttigieg; there’s been almost no investigation into his record as mayor or what if anything he’s proposing to do. That’s the process by which a small town mayor is making himself into a serious contender. If he can’t answer a few simple questions about himself then he’s definitely way out of his league running for president.

  155. 155.

    James E Powell

    @smintheus:

    The author of the article you linked says

    let me be up front about my bias. I don’t trust former McKinsey consultants. I don’t trust military intelligence officers. And I don’t trust the type of people likely to appear on “40 under 40” lists, the valedictorian-to-Harvard-to-Rhodes-Scholarship types who populate the American elite. I don’t trust people who get flattering reams of newspaper profiles and are pitched as the Next Big Thing That You Must Pay Attention To, and I don’t trust wunderkinds who become successful too early. Why? Because I am somewhat cynical about the United States meritocracy.

    I have to admit I have the same biases.

  156. 156.

    normal liberal

    @smintheus:
    Amen. He will either figure it out and have a shot at VP or the cabinet, please God, or he will go home to South Bend a sadder but wiser mayor. If he survives this politically, and he should, he has 25 years in which to move up to national office.

  157. 157.

    smintheus

    @eemom: I didn’t get the impression Robinson obsessively hates Buttigieg. It sounds like he may have suspected he knew his type at Harvard, but couldn’t figure him out based on his policy vagueness and the absence of serious reporting. So he just read his book and then compared that picture to what he could find about South Bend’s issues. That’s more than other reporters have done.

  160. 160.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    OMG OMG OMG!!!!!

    I’ve lost count of how many drinks I owe you, but it has to be in the double digits by now!

    So many thanks.

  163. 163.

    NotMax

    @Mary G

    When you say “PC speakers” do you mean external speakers plugged into the PC or speakers built in to the monitor? Have you tried re-installing the audio/sound driver (your live-in teen can do that for you with his eyes shut, fer sure)?

    @ThresherK

    Yes, yes, yes to B&W cinematography. There’s any number of films for which color would result in a lesser product (e.g., Casablanca, Young Frankenstein, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf).

  164. 164.

    West of the Rockies

    @smintheus:

    I don’t want any candidates fluffed. I don’t recall insinuating that I did. IMO, hit pieces don’t simply separate the wheat from the chaff; they diminish candidates and cause circular firing squads.

    The sainted Bernie and too many of his followers found HRC insufficiently pure. “Why, she’s just the same as Trump!” Throw in Russian rat-fucking, a lazy-ass MSM, Republican gerrymandering and their efforts to block POC from voting, and you end up with a Trump.

  166. 166.

    Jay

    @West of the Rockies:

    It’s the MSM, Jake.

    You are going to have to balance out the two different MSM memes shaking out so far of White Male Saviour and attack dog faux “progressive”,

    Just like with the female cantidates mysogeny dogwhistles and the racist/islamophobic/authentic dogwhistles on POC cantidates.

    It’s the MSM, Jake.

  167. 167.

    West of the Rockies

    @Jay:

    It does get disheartening sometimes though. I read an article on The Root about how Cory Booker botched a “black handshake” and is thus not to be taken quite as seriously.

  168. 168.

    eemom

    @West of the Rockies:

    Yeah. This Robinson thing comes across, at least to me, as a very bizarrely determined hit piece. He could level all the criticisms he does about Buttigieg’s book and still come out somewhere far less extreme than OMG DON’T LET THIS MAN ANYWHERE NEAR NATIONAL OFFICE. Cuz other than work for McKinsey, I don’t see where Buttigieg actually DID anything immoral. He just didn’t meet this particular weirdo’s rigid standards of how future presidents are supposed to talk about Harvard Square, Vietnam, etc.

    The pettiness of some of the attacks — “hey, didn’t they have clock towers at Notre Dame?” — also reeks of a less than good faith agenda, imho.

  169. 169.

    eemom

    @Jay:

    I don’t think that having a bullshit irresponsible media that has played a significant part in getting us to the fucked state we’re in is something we should be “forget it Jake” resigning ourselves to.

  170. 170.

    Jay

    @West of the Rockies:

    Some of it is trivia bs. “Inauthentic”

    Some of it is real harm to real people, with few lessons learned.

    I a time of clickbait, it is what it is.

    On my ranch, I have two peat bogs. One’s drunken forest seep, the other, a former ( 5,000 years ago) pot hole lake.

    3 years ago, they both started “burping” methane.

    Brought in the Earth Scientists from TRU, they confirmed the burps were methane and carbon. They are still trying to figure out the whole causual chain and why.

    I got a custom 1 acre tarp for the pothole, tented it, plumbed it into a pvc line, ( taking a lead from an Mother Earth French Farmer story), stuck a diaphragm pressure pump at the end, tied it into my propane tanks.

    I “harvested” 1100L of methane at 80lbs last year from what should be a methane and carbon sink.

    We are out of time.

  171. 171.

    Jay

    @eemom:

    So, the Kamela Harris is a Cop, truancy b.s. has been exposed.

    That’s what we need to do.

    The MSM ain’t gonna do their jobs.

    We have to.

    Wonkette has a series of “He/She actually said” articles debunking the hot takes/MSM memes taken out of context and stretched further than Silly Putty Guiness World Record.

  172. 172.

    Peale

    @West of the Rockies: yep. There’s the fact that the candidate selected in the end was weaker than optimal for the situation. The problem I have with the attack machines that is going on is that it just assumes that if we sort out candidates rigorously now, we’ll end up with the best candidate. However, that doesn’t address the other problems. As far as I can tell, of the states we need to flip, only Florida has potentially made it easier for some disenfranchised voters to vote. And even if the Russians don’t interfere (lol) this time, there’s this rather big social media technology advantage that the conservatives had that at some point the democrats will have to deal with. I’ve yet to find a candidate who I think can overcome those obstacles. I think Bernie will be dead in the water if he wins the nomination, since his camp seems to think just replacing the witch is enough…the same campaign, but louder this time is a loser.

  174. 174.

    West of the Rockies

    @Jay:

    But, but unreasonable snowballs in Oklahoma! Senator Inhofe said so! Surely, he’s not mistaken?

  175. 175.

    ola azul

    @eemom:
    @Jay:

    It’s always inneresting when two strong personalities collide.

    Fwiw, seems like you two are making separate but corrollary points. One point is based on how shit actually is (i.e.observed reality proffered w/o further remark), and one point is based on how the fucked-uppedness of the world, especially the reprehensible servile MSM, should emphatically not be accepted w/o protest.

    Both points valid, imo. No conflict.

    Maybe I got that interchange all wrong. If so, like Rosanna Rosanna Danna once said: “Never mind.”

  176. 176.

    NotMax

    @ola azul

    Emily Litella.

    Roseanne Roseannadanna’s line was “It’s always somethin’.”

    Trivia: The name Roseanne Roseannadanaa was a take-off from the name of a local NYC news person, Rose Ann Scamardella.

  178. 178.

    TS (the original)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I adored Roy Marsden as Dalgleish

    I keep replaying his Dalgleish on youtube. He was a perfect Dalgleish. I sure PD James approved. Still don’t understand why they replaced him in the later stories.

  179. 179.

    ola azul

    @NotMax:

    Well, I’ll be good goddam …

    I sit, not stand — and not for the first time! — obligingly corrected. Tx.

    Will say: It’s weird and sometimes cruel how mem’ry plays tricks onna body; ‘member when I’s a boy, usedta watch SNL with my mother growing up in Flint. We wuz welfare waifs and poor as street urchins (gubmint cheese, 5-lb. blocks, Velveeta shit-sandwiches!), but distinctly remember (apart from, now don’t-much-care-but-still-sometimes-guilty, idiotic sportsball) watching SNL with her. My mother hadda wicked, twisted, sarcastical (prolly from t’multiple beat-downs life give her) sense a humor. She were smart but shit on. Some of her probs were undoubtedly her own, tho. SNL twere our late-night treat growing up. And yet I “misremembered” (tx. GeeDub, you motherfucker!) “Never mind.”

    (How’d that hoppen? Makes a body wonder what he’s legit forgot already.)

    Ah, well. Hard to think of ever’thing, as my buddy likes to sez.

    My mother hadda hard life and died incredibly hard. Cruelly, I would say, cuz her own mother couldn’t let go (resusitated three times from the brink of certain death). Died (finally, in anguished exhaustion) XMas day (which I don’t give a fuck about, as one might expect).

    Not tryn’ta get all heavy (even tho’ I did — asshole!), just tryn’ta convey the special meaning SNL had/s to me and how weird it is to get a part a my childhood wrong.

    Que estrano!

  181. 181.

    NotMax

    @ola azul

    I sit, not stand — and not for the first time! — obligingly corrected.

    Been there, done that, got a drawerful of the T-shirts.

    ;)

  182. 182.

    Brachiator

    @smintheus:

    This thorough going demolition of Pete Buttigieg’s self hype is a thing to behold. Robinson goes through Buttigieg’s book chapter by chapter outlining what the mayor does and does not profess an interest in; he brings the receipts, and it’s devastating.

    Coming very late to the thread.

    I read through this piece. A total waste of time. The author talks about himself a lot and tries to sell himself as a superior judge of character. I don’t know him from Adam and don’t need his filter.

  183. 183.

    satby

    @smintheus: so you didn’t read the book, you aren’t personally familiar with the issues facing South Bend, you’ll just take this guy’s “investigation” as the gospel truth because it evidently says what you want to hear anyway.

    2020 will be even more of a nightmare than 2016, we haven’t learned a fucking thing. Just wait till the ratfucking moves on from this small fry candidate to the bigger fish. They’re just getting warmed up.

  184. 184.

    Sab

    Yuck. NE Ohio. Just looked outside, and there’s a couple of inches of snow. Also one of my baby rhododendrons died this winter. Apparently it wasn’t up to life after climate change, what with all the temperature swings.

  185. 185.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Jay: Don’t burn that methane in anything precision like a generator set. It’s OK for home heating as long as you have corrosion-proof burners and check them regularly.

    “Harvested” methane and natural gas from sewage pits and the like tends to be full of moisture, acid/base vapour, mercaptans and other contaminants and absent a complicated filter chain and regular sampling and testing it will corrode and eventually destroy upstream equipment. It will work for a while but turn around to bite you later (like a lot of home-grown engineering does).

  188. 188.

    Bex

    @satby: Amen. I thought about you when I read Pete’s description of the Farmer’s Market. Had no idea what it is actually like.

  190. 190.

    Chris Johnson

    @ola azul: …wat?

    I’ve just picked up a bunch of old Pogo books left to me when my Dad died last year. I also am really fond of the Trillbilly Worker’s Party podcast. I hear a lot of vernacular, always have done, even from back when I was a kid.

    What the heck was that?

    (wait, maybe it’s the reincarnation of Lester Bangs?)

  193. 193.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Chris Johnson: Another Pogo fan! My father loved Pogo — I have about 20 Pogo collections he kept. Walt Kelly should be read again and again on McCarthy, AKA Simple J. Malarkey.

  196. 196.

    smintheus

    @satby: So tell me what Robinson got wrong, beginning with Buttigieg’s explanation of why he went to work for McKinsey and what his take away from working there was. I want to learn about the candidates rather than just join the chorus of applause.

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