Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republicans got rid McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Respite Excellent Read: Dolly Parton Is A Goddess (Or At Least A Bodhisattva)

Respite Excellent Read: Dolly Parton Is A Goddess (Or At Least A Bodhisattva)

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From Billboard, “Dolly Parton Steers Her Empire Through the Pandemic”:

… Many people depend on the Dollywood Company, which is the largest employer in the rural, tourism-dependent Sevier County and whose main attractions — its flagship park and Splash Country — draw over 3 million visitors annually. Keeping people employed and paid is a particular priority for Parton, who continues to pay her band, even though she hasn’t toured since 2016, as well as her personal staffers, during the pandemic. But without money coming into the park, the Dollywood Company put all but a small team of the properties’ 4,000 full-time and seasonal workers on furlough.

By June, most of those furloughed full-time employees went back to work as Parton properties reopened with limited capacities, mandatory mask requirements and other social distancing measures; most of the dinner theaters and restaurants reopened in July as state laws allowed. But Parton is frank about the situation, even as she dispenses some of her trademark optimism. “We certainly are not going to have a great year this year,” she says over Skype from Nashville one morning in early July. “Hopefully by coming back, we’ll pick up some stuff that we’ve lost. All of the things that I’m involved in are on hold, even my production companies and the movies — everything [took] a big hit. But I still believe, still trust God, and I’m still hoping for the best.”

Making tough calls — about her companies, her employees and her brand — is how Parton, 74, spends much of her time. She has a schedule resembling that of a tech CEO with a cult following: Often starting at 4 a.m., Parton and her longtime manager, Danny Nozell, review what her team calls the “Ask Dolly” list, a log of opportunities and decisions for Parton to weigh in on that Nozell keeps to no more than 50 items to present in one sitting. Before the pandemic, they would often discuss the list over breakfast at her Nashville home, trading off cooking duties to prepare the usual menu of cheesy grits, bacon, eggs and country ham. Now, Nozell faxes Parton the list to discuss by phone — the first of half a dozen phone conversations the two have on any given day.

In the 56 years since she took a bus to Nashville to pursue stardom the day after her high school graduation, Parton has shaped the history of country music. She has 25 No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart — the most of any female artist — and is also the only artist to have a top 20 hit on that chart in every decade from the 1960s to 2010s. Since Nielsen Music/MRC Data began tracking U.S. sales electronically in 1991, she has sold over 11 million albums, and her songs have received over a billion on-demand streams…

The breadth of her offerings is staggering, but fitting: Parton’s cross-cultural, multigenerational fandom is unlike that of any other celebrity. (Nielsen ranked her the No. 1 most marketable country artist in the world in 2017, the last year of its N-Score survey.) “How can she appeal to so many different kinds of people who we’re told should really hate each other, but they all agree on her? That’s really the big question that we tried to figure out,” says Jad Abumrad, host of WNYC Studios’ nine-part 2019 podcast Dolly Parton’s America. “We talked to these fervent Dolly fans, from Appalachian queer kids to Brooklyn hipsters to [conservative] people in the South. Everyone sees her as theirs.” His ultimate explanation? “I say this with humility and as someone who is not a believer: There’s something very Christ-like about her.”

That has never felt more true than in 2020. During the pandemic, Parton has also taken on the role of comforter-in-chief: She donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s COVID-19 research fund, recorded handwashing videos and bedtime stories for children, released a soothing new song called “When Life Is Good Again” and offered social media pep talks about standing together. Over Skype, she is warm and quick to crack a joke, decked out in full Dolly glam: a flowing blond wig with bangs and tendrils, a custom-made, high-collared black top with gold buttons running along the side. Yet she becomes gravely serious when she talks about her mission to make as many people as she can feel as good as possible. “As the scripture says, ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ So I look at my life with that every day and think that God expects it of me,” she says. “I expect it of myself, and I think people expect it of me. If I can be an inspiration, then I want to be that. That makes me feel good… ”

Reader Interactions

235Comments

  3. 3.

    Alison Rose

    DOLLY FOREVER.

    I also liked when she talked about renaming the Dixie Stampede attraction.

    “When they said ‘Dixie’ was an offensive word, I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to offend anybody. This is a business. We’ll just call it The Stampede.’ As soon as you realize that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose.”

    “Don’t be a dumbass” is always a good message.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    An interesting and impressive person. I remember reading years ago that Dolly and her husband used to vacation in an RV, she didn’t wear make-up or wigs and introduced herself as Mrs Hislastname, and nobody recognized her (maybe hardly anybody). I wonder if she used a different first name, cause her speaking voice is pretty recognizable

    @Alison Rose:  I used to listen to Jon Fugelsang’s radio show, I like the way he describes “political correctness”: it means trying not to be an asshole

  5. 5.

    jl

    Dolly P limits daily briefing to no more than 50 items, and she’s 74? Biden needs to interview her for WH job. They’ll be swamped and need that kind of superhero power.

  7. 7.

    Ken

    to [conservative] people in the South.

    Ooh, a fun game. What word did Jad Abumrad use, that Billboard thought should be replaced with “[conservative]”?

  10. 10.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Baud: If he has the testicular fortitude(which he doesn’t), to do so, Orville Redenbacher doesn’t have enough popcorn….the ass whuppin’ that little woman would put on him would be legendary

  12. 12.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    Oh my, that would be something to see.

    She is just a truly good person.  The goodness shines from her.  I am emphatically NOT a country music fan, but there are exceptions and she is one of them.

  18. 18.

    jl

    @Baud: If things go well, Trump will world historical example why it’s bad to get everyone to absolutely  hate your guts. Swift and Parton have stayed out of politics but Trump forced them to get in and speak out.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @geg6: Most country music misses me, especially recent stuff, but Jolene is a great song, and I once heard her— way back on the Carson show, I think– do a stripped-down, acoustic version of My Tennessee Mountain Home that was great. Don’t see it on Youtube.

    I think Willie Nelson has a similar broad appeal, I’m guessing a lot of his neighbors and fans don’t know, or choose to ignore, his politics

  20. 20.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Is it wrong for me to hope that Trump goes after Dolly?

    “Awful, nasty woman that Dolly Parton. Just awful. She supports Antifa and the anarchist THUGS looting our cities. She’s a total 3/10, by the way.”

    That’s probably what he’d say, I imagine. I’m sure Parton would murder him rhetorically in response. Just like Harris will.

  21. 21.

    jl

    I’m keeping a list on who is making clear what sider they’re on. We got Kpop fans, Cardi B, Swift, Parton. Any big demos left out?

  24. 24.

    Sister Golden Bear

    She’s Good People.

    One of my favorite stories is she entered a drag queen Dolly Parton look-a-like contest—and lost. Which she thought was fabulous

    “I just over-exaggerated — made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything,” she told ABC News. “All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy.”

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Unfamiliar with Swift but (per Wikipedia) she appears to be one of the better things to come out of what was for a while my stomping grounds of Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania.

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    “Some people say she was born in Nambia.”

    //

  27. 27.

    Jess

    I told a friend that I thought every musical genre (with the possible exception of polka) had at least a couple of works of genius, and he said “Not country!” I replied, “What about some of Dolly Parton’s stuff?” and he conceded the point. “Jolene” will always be one of my faves.

  29. 29.

    lamh36

    Chump has turned this into bizarro world

     

    Bill Kristol

    @BillKristol

    “Kamala Harris is the face of America in 2020, the tawny-skinned child of immigrants. She is as American as apple pie and hot dogs, as pizza and ramen noodles, as empanadas and samosas—and there is little Donald Trump or his apologists can do about it.”
    https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1294693484344102914

  33. 33.

    ThresherK

    @Sister Golden Bear: Charlie Chaplin (incognito) once came in third in a “Little Tramp” lookalike contest, IIRC.

    It’s always fun to see which celebs have the sense of humor to even try something like this.

  37. 37.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @jl:

    I think comment 9 is a Parton quote. She could riff off that.

    It’s perfect. Describes Trump’s tastes to a tee

  42. 42.

    Ken

    @Baud: When Bill Kristol becomes a BJ front pager, it’ll be time for me to move onto my next life.

    Where you’ll join Cole, because I’m sure that will only happen over his dead body.

  44. 44.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    OT:

    My new Ohio federally-compliant DL arrived today. Only took a week, which I was surprised by. I’m really pissed though because the license has “With God, anything is possible” on it as one of those transparent pictures. It’s the state’s official motto, but it’s still a violation of the separation of Church and State. Not every religion calls it’s deity “God”. Many are even polytheistic

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @raven: along those lines, from a Harper’s collection of Dolly Parton quotes:

    “I make jokes about it, but it’s the truth that I kind of patterned my look after the town tramp. I didn’t know what she was, just this woman who was blonde and piled her hair up, wore high heels and tight skirts, and, boy, she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Momma used to say, ‘Aw, she’s just trash,’ and I thought, That’s what I want to be when I grow up. Trash.”

  48. 48.

    zhena gogolia

    @jl:

    The Grass Is Blue. The other one I have is Little Sparrow, which has a mix of things. She is a wonderful musician.

  49. 49.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Why you have to disrespect polka?

    My great-grandfather, though born here in the states in the late 1910s, loved polka. My local area drew a lot of immigrants from eastern Europe/Balkans as well as Italy. Back in the 70s and earlier, there was a “polka scene” my great-grandfather would dance at

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: If I ever meet a never-trumper, I’m going to ask them to explain to me how Ronald Reagan’s dog-whistles, from Philadelphia (MS) to Bitburg, from Welfare Queens to Young Bucks buying T-Bone steaks (I feel a little gross even typing that) weren’t racist.

    (and was anybody else brought up short by “tawny-skinned”?) ETA: I have to add, other than that, it’s a strong statement

  70. 70.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    so if anybody was missing “Fire Tornado” in their 2020 Shit-Bingo Card… you win. And no, I only wish it were the sequel to Sharknado

    U.S. Tornadoes@USTornadoes
    Confirmed this tornado warning is for radar detecting a possible fire tornado in the wildfire. This is the first Fire Tornado Warning we are aware of in history. #cawx

    Looks like the California side of the Lake Tahoe area? A fucking nightmare in Lake County, CA

  71. 71.

    Mary G

    I stan Dolly

    ETA: Just put on her trio collection with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. Not a country fan, but love a great harmony with slide guitar.

  72. 72.

    lamh36

    Ya’ll, I LEGIT might be moving to Houston in like 6 weeks and I barely have any plans for it. Its like I want to plan for it, but what if it doesn’t happen and now I done, done all this planning for nothing. I hate counting my chickens before they are hatched!

    I have been home from work for almost 5 hours and I haven’t done shit…

  73. 73.

    lamh36

     

    Ya’ll, I LEGIT might be moving to Houston in like 6 weeks and I barely have any plans for it. Its like I want to plan for it, but what if it doesn’t happen and now I done, done all this planning for nothing. I hate counting my chickens before they are hatched!

     

    I’ve been home for 5 hours and haven’t done shit but surf the net while Wonder Woman was on tv

     

    https://giphy.com/gifs/WceJhr8WHsz1C

  74. 74.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I was surprised to find when I first moved to the Lost Coast how many descendants of Swiss and Portuguese there were in the county. The accordion is very popular up here as are polkas. I worked with an accordion player and teacher for a couple of years.

    Right wing dipshit but a nice guy and great musiscian.

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Holy shit! That’s perhaps more in the Lake Almanor area up near Mt. Lassen Volcanic Park. I didn’t know there’s an active fire up there, but it’s so frickin’ hot maybe they’re spontaneously generating.

    Fire tornado?

  92. 92.

    Amir Khalid

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Barça are on a four-year streak of getting eliminated in the Chmpions League knockout stage. Why, last year they had a 3-0 lead from the first leg of their semifinal, only to lose the second leg 4-0 to an English club that hadn’t won a league title in decades.

  96. 96.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    When Bill Kristol becomes a BJ front pager, it’ll be time for me to move onto my next life.

    Has he taken over the spot once held by Andrew Sullivan, before he became a parody of himself?

    Kristol, Rubin, and few other Never-Trumpers are not going to be welcome in Republican circles anymore. Don’t think I want them on our team, absent a full confession and some atonement.

  101. 101.

    Yutsano

    If anyone is curious as to what I’m referring to, he’s looking into pardoning Edward Snowden.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    Fortunately I live in a burb north of Atlanta, and my mail has been just fine.   Mail delivery was a tad late tonight that it didn’t come until 7:30 .   Oh I thought we couldn’t do overtime.

  108. 108.

    raven

    I didn’t know Jackson Browne wrote These Days. . .always thought of it as a Tom Rush song.

  109. 109.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl:  Of course there’s a tweet from 2016 from him calling Snowden a traitor. It’s probably one of the very few points I agree with him on. I can believe he did a good thing for the country but also believe the way he did it was treasonous.

    @JPL: As far as I know Julian hasn’t come up yet. But that wouldn’t surprise me, as then Russia would have all its assets freed up. Is he still in jail in Britain? I haven’t heard anything about him since his eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy.

  110. 110.

    jl

    @James E Powell: I heard an interview with a Lincoln Project leader. After election they don’t in our tent. They want to politically exterminate Trumpism, movement conservatism… the whole current GOP and rebuild. He said the feeling is mutual from Trumpers. Serious death match.

  112. 112.

    jl

    @WaterGirl: They don’t want in our tent.

    I’ll try to remember the guy’s name. He said GOP has lost majority for generation, and if we stay a democracy, it is SOL as governing party. At times he sounded furious.

  115. 115.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I was surprised to find when I first moved to the Lost Coast how many descendants of Swiss and Portuguese there were in the county.

    Yeah, you’d think most were settled on the east coast, but many probably traveled west

  117. 117.

    debbie

    I’m doing some work and listening to a local radio show. The host is juxtaposing current events with music. He talked about Neil Young suing Trump for playing his work without permission, then played  “Rocking in the Free World,” then played Ben Folds Five’s “Rocking the Suburbs,” then played a clip of Trump saying he was going to protect the suburbs, and there would be no more low-income housing in the suburbs. Jesus, I don’t remember hearing about this statement. Welcome back, redlining!

  118. 118.

    Emma from FL

    @jl: I can live with that. A sane Republican party can be an asset. I might not agree with them and push back as hard as possible but sane is a million parsecs better than what we have now.

  120. 120.

    Amir Khalid

    @Yutsano:

    Per Wikipedia, Assange had served out his sentence last September. But he’s still in the clink (at HMP Belmarsh, wherever that is) pending a full hearing on his extradition to the US; because of the pandemic, the hearing has been postponed to next month.

  121. 121.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Portuguese who immigrated were fishers, so there are pockets of them up and down the West Coast. San Pedro in the L.A. area has a sizable population.

    The Swiss probably went to the Eureka area because it was a big cheese producing area. (It was too remote to ship milk to other parts of California in the 1800s, so they exported cheese instead.)

  123. 123.

    jl

    @debbie: Not Schmidt. Some moderate Romney style foreign policy wonk. Not a neocon.

    I welcome their help. We need all help for the election. After, the political death cage match will be fun to watch, when I’m a bloodthirsty mood.

  124. 124.

    raven

    @Sister Golden Bear: My Nazi SIL is from a Long Beach Portuguese.  The Western Flyer book about the seine purser they took on the Sea of Cortez has quite a bit about that community in Cannery Row.

  125. 125.

    Immanentize

    @raven: back in college I had a huge crush on Veronica Lake after watching Sullivan’s Travels.  Sadly by then she was dead — in Vermont no less.  I would have driven up to meet her if we had existed in the same temporal plain.

  130. 130.

    Immanentize

    @lamh36: I’m staying just west of Houston right now.  Back to Boston tomorrow afternoon.  Houston can be a great city!

    Really varried music scene, great food, really good museums (The Menil is on of my favorites in the world — check out the Rothko Chapel), super diverse (I’ve heard it has the largest Vietnamese community in the country), just elected 19 AA women judges!, lots of colleges, top notch medical centers…. Also some downsides like 12 lane highways and Joel Osteen.

    Just don’t move to Dallas!

  134. 134.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Calouste:

    So that means they are all Athletic Bilbao supporters one would assume.

    While Athletic Bilbao was officially founded in 1903, its history goes a bit deeper than that. The then-new game of football was brought to the city of Bilbao by two different groups of people – the British shipyard workers and the Basque students returning from their studies in Britain (which is the reason for the English sounding Athletic instead for the Spanish sounding Atlético). Each of these two groups founded their own football club in 1898; it wasn’t until 1903 that they decided to combine their forces and settle on a merger that would lead to creation of Athletic Club.

  135. 135.

    lamh36

    @WaterGirl: Nope, but I know they’ve been talking to my Mgr about me, because I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her with how busy we been, but she saw me in the hall and actually stopped and asked me if I had heard anything.  When i said, oh I’m going to tour the lab next week and then we’ll see.  She said “oh yeah, they mentioned they were going to do something like that”.  So apparently they’ve been keeping her in the loop on it!

     

    So might be good sign?

  138. 138.

    Mary G

    @Immanentize: The Immp begins his great adventure! I’m sure it’ll be hard to fly home alone.

    Just found this came out this week from LMB:
    The Physicians of Vilnoc: A Penric & Desdemona Novella in the World of the Five Gods. Bought it immediately.

  142. 142.

    Ian

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Most of the No-Trumpers don’t abhor the things he says, they abhor that he says them out loud where the rest of the planet can hear it.  If they had a problem with the underlying philosophy they probably wouldn’t be conservatives in the first place.

  143. 143.

    James E Powell

    @jl:

    They want to politically exterminate Trumpism, movement conservatism… the whole current GOP and rebuild. He said the feeling is mutual from Trumpers. Serious death match.

    The Never Trumps are living in a fantasy world. There was a death match in 2016 and the Trumpistas exterminated them politically.

    Their candidates – Christie, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Kasich – were all emphatically rejected by the Republican base voters. Before that, they got rid of Cantor for being too soft. Boehner couldn’t hold his position because wasn’t a completely unhinged right wing lunatic.

    In the four years since Trump won the nomination, non-Trumpistas have been systematically purged. Trump is more popular among Republican voters than any of them. The only exception is Romney, a Mormon running in a Mormon state.

    Kristol is a man without a country.

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I don’t really give a shit that trump went golfing, or that an ex-football player played with him, but I’m glad some eagle-eyed tweeter caught that today was the day trump had invited himself to throw out the first pitch at a Yankees game, then cancelled the thing that was never gonna happen because he’d be too busy with the ‘rona

    Merrill – sheltering at home Medium star @MerrillLynched 17m
    On the day Donald Trump said he’d be too busy with #CoronaVirus vaccine meetings to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, he went golfing with Jay Feely! F

  147. 147.

    Immanentize

    @Mary G: he has launched.  I am actually looking forward to getting home to the cat.  The Immp and I have been evaluating all we forgot to pack or that he now realizes he needs — longer cables, a reading light, a power strip with a long cord….

    Your new book has a plague theme….

  150. 150.

    jl

    @James E Powell: I agree. I gave no opinion on Linoln Project”s  chances after they sink Trump. More likely Trumpers go the way of Birchers, and remnants of  N Trumpers join up w corporate Dems. But that’ll a gradual evolution.

  151. 151.

    Origuy

    @trollhattan: I’ve heard of fire tornados, but I’ve never heard of a warning for one. They happen under certain conditions in big fires. The one that the warning is for is called the Loyalton Fire, up in Lassen County on the CA/NV forest. There are a couple of others in that same area right now.

    https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/

  157. 157.

    Kay

    Jim Cooper
    @repjimcooper
    We need to subpoena the Postmaster General, and if he fails to appear, we should send the Sgt at Arms to arrest him.

    Bravo. Do it.

  158. 158.

    James E Powell

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Maggie & Hope Hicks are already writing the article: Trump, chastened by personal loss, emerges more determined to lead the nation through the corona crisis.

  159. 159.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    They should subpoena every member of the board of governors. We want names, dates, and places. We want to know who gave the orders.

  162. 162.

    Jager

    @Sister Golden Bear: There’s a restaurant in Somerville, MA called Dali, a great place. The owner is a Basque, I got to know him a little over the years. In one of the dining rooms, there is a large pen and ink drawing of a sheep. I asked Mario about it, he said, ‘A Basque boy’s first love.”

  164. 164.

    tomtofa

    @trollhattan: Half Moon bay, just down the coast from SF, used to be heavily Portuguese; less so now as it gentrifies. Maybe some of them left for the similar but unspoiled Lost Coast.

  166. 166.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: My favorite CA population are the Punjabi-Mexican community up near Yuba City. First off, Sikhs are the best people on earth. Fight me. And second, that’s a cultural mashup that’s just glorious to think about, especially after 100 years.

  169. 169.

    CaseyL

    Twitter is full of people advocating a massive protest in support of the Post Office.  No details yet, other than a call to gather outside DeJoy’s house in North Carolina.

    Anyone here know anything about it?

  171. 171.

    Mary G

    My housemate’s youngest sister had to have an emergency appendectomy Thursday night. No one in the family is allowed to visit her due to COVID19 precautions. Fortunately it hadn’t burst and they all have iPhones and FaceTime/Zoom constantly, but it ticks me off that Twitler was allowed to visit his brother. Even if New York allows it now. I can’t get voices of those thousands of anguished survivors lamenting that their beloved had to die alone (except possibly for an overworked nurse or doctor) out of my head.

  174. 174.

    Achrachno

    @James E Powell: If they can peel off just 10% of Reps. into an anti-trump party going forward I’m all for it.  Prior to the election — even better.

    I don’t want to do anything to discourage their troops from defecting, surrendering, or just running away and hiding in a haystack.  I’ll take anyone who wants to come over to our side — let them know they’re welcome.  The more the merrier.

  176. 176.

    Origuy

    There’s a Little Portugal neighborhood in San Jose. Farmers from the Azores started coming here in 1850. It still has a lot of Portuguese flavor, with San Jose’s only Michelin star restaurant and a spectacular Catholic church. I should do a San Jose neighborhoods On the Road some time.

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I love this place.

    Your great grandfather was born about the same time as my parents.

    My grandparents were all born over 25 yrs before that. My great grandparents were born shortly after the civil war.

    Life is funny. A great performer is a real down to earth human being and has made a really, really good living being a great performer and a really special human being. She doesn’t seem to be tainted by money or fame in any way. Maybe money isn’t the root of all evil, it’s the love of money above all else that is.

  179. 179.

    James E Powell

    @Redshift:

    I am perfectly happy if the Never Trumpers want to spend the rest of their careers bashing their heads against Trumpism, though.

    That would be the only good thing to come out of this nightmare.

  181. 181.

    James E Powell

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    My great-grandfather, though born here in the states in the late 1910s, loved polka. My local area drew a lot of immigrants from eastern Europe/Balkans as well as Italy. Back in the 70s and earlier, there was a “polka scene” my great-grandfather would dance at

    I’m from Cleveland – the home of Frankie Yankovic, America’s Polka King. My mother’s family is Bohemian. Polkas were pretty much around constantly, especially at weddings. It is happy music.

  184. 184.

    jl

    @James E Powell: I think will be a serious effort to steal the election. Moving now to be first to set facts on the ground early is the only safe option. Dems need to adjust: go big on early voting in person and mail, armies of lawyers, subpoena Barr and ask why he’s not investigating, put him in slammer if he doesn’t show. That will scare low level flunkies, give them cold feet, make them hesitant.

  185. 185.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Redshift:

    I am perfectly happy if the Never Trumpers want to spend the rest of their careers bashing their heads against Trumpism, though. 

    All the while saying, “Why did we create this shitpile of bigots and imbeciles?!”

    No, of course not.  Rick Wilson, etal will never admit, even to themselves, to their careers of Rethuglican ratfucking.

  188. 188.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: my father was born in 1929, both his parents were over thirty. His father, my grandfather was born in 1890, the youngest, by a few years, of eleven children. I think his eldest sibling was 20 when he was born, I’d have to dig back in the 1900 Irish census to check. I have no idea when his parents were born, they were both dead by the time of that census. I was born in 1967. Long generations in my family

  189. 189.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wiki tells me Robert trump had no children. I wonder who gets his money. IIRC the four siblings got about $200M each when they sold off Fred’s assets. I think the number is in Mary Trump’s book, and the big NYT exposé, but I can’t remember.

  190. 190.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Generations are funny. I’m the oldest child of two oldest children of oldest children. I’m nearly 60, and my great-grandmother was born in 1888. When she died, aged 99, she had a great-great-grandchild. No-one among those generations was under 21 when they gave birth to/fathered their first child, but most weren’t much older.

    My Revolutionary War-veteran ancestors are at least 10 generations back. There are still living people whose great-grandfathers fought in that war.

  193. 193.

    frosty

    @raven: or Gregg Allman, but no, it was Jackson Browne. I’m still torn between which lyric is best:

    Please don’t don’t confront me with my failures…

    I am aware of them  OR

    I have not forgotten them

  196. 196.

    Hoppie

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    I remember talking to my grandma Ellen (step-grandfathers mother)   about her conversations with her great-grandfather about being in the Revolutionary War  .We are so connected.

    O

    note from WG: I deleted all the extra spaces. I thought at first there was an issue with the site.

  197. 197.

    frosty

    @Immanentize:  So, Dallas and Houston … as bad blood as Baltimore and DC?

    I don’t see it as much with Philly and Pittsburgh; they just kind of ignore each other, like they’re in different states LOL.

  198. 198.

    Ruckus

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    There was a great Basque restaurant in Vernon. CA till a few years back. Vernon being such lovely garden spot… Vernon has a population in the 2010 census of 112. On work days the population goes up a bit to around 50,000….. Any way the Villa Basque was a great restaurant and I have eaten many very enjoyable meals there.

  200. 200.

    frosty

    @Immanentize: When I went off to school in SoCal, my parents put me on a plane at BWI (Friendship Airport then) and sent me off from MD to CA by myself. Years later I asked them WTF???? I was 17!!!! Their response was that they were sure I could handle myself.

    So … on arrival I left my suitcase on the sidewalk when I caught the bus, didn’t know I was supposed to load it myself. When I found out after arrival it wasn’t in the luggage compartment, they called LAX. It was still sitting there, three hours later!

    You made a better choice, flying there with the Immp.

  203. 203.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I read that too!

    And I know I’ve told this here before, but I remember reading in the Washington Post in the mid-80s a story about an elderly DC man whose father had fought in the Civil War, and whose grandfather had fought in the Revolutionary War. Both were in their late 80s when they fathered their sons. That just blew my mind – a (then) living man, alive at the same time as me, whose grandfather had served under George Washington.

    @Hoppie:  Holy cats, what a treat that must have been to hear.

  204. 204.

    frosty

    @Martin: My only interaction with a Sikh was at a hot sauce eating contest at one of my jobs. We were sweating, burning, and he kept dipping chips in different offerings and saying. “That’s not hot. In my country we have hot sauce.”

  206. 206.

    Fair Economist

    @James E Powell: Long-term the Never Trumpers are correct – this country is constitutionally a two-party country, and once the crazy Trumpists are driven to the fringes one of those parties will be the sane conservative one. That said, “long-term” is the relevant phrase. The Trumpists put racism and bigotry above everything and there are a lot of them – even in CA they still totally swamp the “sane” conservatives. The “natural conservative” party the Never Trumpers want can’t form until the racists are irrelevant enough that the non-white conservatives feel free to abandon the Democrats and join it and that’s at least a generation off. Worse for them (but good for us) tribalism effects are liberalizing those non-white conservatives so their party will have to be considerably less conservative than they want when they eventually get to form it.

    At the same time I feel like we’re going to need to throw them some policy bones at least for a while because we’re going to need them to keep the Trumpists down.

  210. 210.

    Redshift

    @jl:

    Dems need to adjust: go big on early voting in person and mail 

    The combined campaign here in VA is already on this; I was in a training session last night. We’re going to be pushing people to apply now for an absentee ballot if that’s what they’re doing, and mail it or drop it off as soon as they get it in mid-late September. If they haven’t voted by mail by October 1, vote early in person instead (even though the deadline to request a mail ballot is October 31.) And making sure people know how to fill out the absentee ballot correctly, since it will be the first time doing it for many people.

  216. 216.

    CaseyL

    @Redshift: I saw that mentioned on Twitter.  The discussion I saw is advocating for massive protest – possibly at DeJoy’s house again. There just aren’t any details.

    The person pushing for it is Walter Schaub, former Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (he left during Trump’s first year in office). He’s not a professional protestor, which leads me to take his call more seriously.

  217. 217.

    Jackie

    @Ruckus: My Dad’s family were poor Okies. It amazes me today that they all survived through the Plague! Dad’s term for the Spanish flu.

  218. 218.

    frosty

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: We knew no one in SoCal. It worked out anyway. However, when we sent my 18-yr old off 220 miles away, we drove him. And teared up on the way home.

    … for a number of reasons it didn’t suit him and he dropped out freshman year. Eventually graduated 6 years later after some good sidetracks and now he’s launched.

  219. 219.

    Brachiator

    @frosty:

    When I went off to school in SoCal, my parents put me on a plane at BWI (Friendship Airport then) and sent me off from MD to CA by myself.

    I got the impression from my freshman orientation literature that parents weren’t really expected to accompany their kids to college. The section about Parents Day a month or so later was heavily emphasized. And my parents could not afford to fly out with me, and they were not going to drive me to college.

    So, I was a bit surprised to see a number of parents with incoming students. I kinda thought these students were wusses.

  221. 221.

    Brachiator

    @Fair Economist:

    Long-term the Never Trumpers are correct – this country is constitutionally a two-party country

    Huh? The Founders thought that political parties, or factions, were evil. George Washington even warned against them. There is nothing in the Constitution favoring political parties.

    Of course, the Founders formed parties as fast as they could, and immediately branded the opposition as bad for the country.

  223. 223.

    Achrachno

    Does anyone else guess that the undisclosed illness that killed Robt. Trump was COVID?  Seems to me the strange way it’s been covered so far suggests so.  50/50 chance anyway?  If it was C., I expect efforts would be made to keep the info. private.  Too embarrassing.  I also wonder if Donald managed to visit his brother in person at the end.  Would the med. staff and Sec. Service even allow that?  Would D. just bluster his way in despite the danger?  Hoax, and all that.

  224. 224.

    SWMBO

    @Another Scott: My second child was born the day before my mom turned 40. And I was in my early twenties then. She got married at 15 1/2. Had me less than a year later.  We’ve joked that we grew up together.

  225. 225.

    ballerat

    @Bruuuuce: I‘m not surprised. His songs have anti-authoritarian bent and he sang about reparations before it was even a thing.

    It often takes an outsider to notice the 800 lb. gorilla in the room.

  226. 226.

    CaseyL

    @Achrachno: I’m not all that interested in R Trump’s death, except to modestly celebrate one less Trump in the world.  And to tell you the truth, I doubt Donald visited him at all.

  228. 228.

    James E Powell

    @Fair Economist:

    Worse for them (but good for us) tribalism effects are liberalizing those non-white conservatives

    And their children. We can win their children to our politics if we bring them into the game.

  229. 229.

    pattonbt

    The never trumpers will never win an election without the trumpers (and vice versa). It’s a marriage made in hell. What constituency is out there that is large enough to support them to anything other than the fringe.

    I hope the National Republican Party is on it’s way to californication.

  230. 230.

    Ruckus

    @Jackie:

    A lot of people died but the spread was less that it could have been because most people didn’t travel all that much. I’ve only known a few people who haven’t traveled a little, 100 yrs ago a lot of people where born, raised and died in the same small town. The big cities weren’t near as big as they are today. LA county has over 10 million inhabitants and is more populated than all but 9 states. In 1920 it was less than 600,000. Many people were born at home. More room between people, less travel made it possible for fewer people to get sick and die. Sort of standardized social distancing. Sure they were stupid then and didn’t mask up, same as now.

  231. 231.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    Nothing specific but congress is set up for the 2 existing parties and anyone else (BS, cough, cough) get seated with which major party they are closest to. George was right though, some political parties are evil.

  232. 232.

    Sab

    @mrmoshpotato: Stu Stevens has admitted it. Book “It Was All A Lie.” Good book, but I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that he only just noticed when Trump won.

    I grew up in a moderate Republican family. Party of Lincoln and all that. Thing is we believed it. I was the first Democrat in my family, and fifty years later we only have one Republican, my abhorent RWNJ racist brother.

  235. 235.

    Steven Camp

    @Baud: and you, and her, and him, and they, and them, and those over there, and them on the other side, ❤️????, the Lord wishes that none perish, that all would believe.

    “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Romans 10:13

     

    @Baud:

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