The Biden administration has gotten a boost in the effort to pass its $2.3 trillion infrastructure package, with the Senate parliamentarian greenlighting a strategy giving Democrats a fresh path around GOP attempts to block the bill. https://t.co/ZpnbJzKaAk
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 6, 2021
Here’s the deal: Wall Street didn’t build this country — the great American middle class did. It’s time we rebuild the middle class and bring everyone along regardless of race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 5, 2021
NEW: Inside Biden WH's plan to sell infrastructure plan – focus on GOP voters & build public support instead of worrying too much about GOP lawmakers, send Cabinet members to the Hill & on TV. It's a rerun of playbook they used to pass Covid relief bill: https://t.co/i34F1Yr2Dv
— Nancy Cook (@nancook) April 5, 2021
Biden’s team members “have pretty successfully re-positioned the idea of unity to mean a super-majority of the country supports what they are doing — the test is not whether you can get Kevin McCarthy to vote for it,” said John Podesta: https://t.co/i34F1Yr2Dv
— Nancy Cook (@nancook) April 5, 2021
Joe Biden’s master plan: do popular stuff and tell people about ithttps://t.co/T64mN6EHWI
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 4, 2021
Some quality snark:
Republican politicians have proven themselves an admirably selfless bunch. Time and again, they’ve been willing to concede credit to Democrats — and Democrats alone — on all sorts of popular policy initiatives. https://t.co/iSiEs1qNcG
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) April 5, 2021
Jeffro
The plan for today: share/re-tweet/email out both that Rampell article and one about the Biden Administration’s efforts to increase food aid around the country…
…with a snarky, “PROBABLY better than rage-tweets, golf, and self-dealing all day long, but really, who knows?”
Have a happy one peeps!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
debbie
Mitch’s reaction to the parliamentarian’s ruling should be epic. Maybe it should even serve as the GOP’s epitaph.
Baud
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
Someone is so jealous right now.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
It’s clear that this administration combined with leadership in both chambers have a secondary goal of making GQP “leaders” like McCarthy as irrelevant to any discussion as they possibly can.
Baud
NYT, as always, has the stories real Americans care about.
Spanky
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
No need. Mitch and McCarthy are doing just fine making themselves irrelevant.
Betty Cracker
Maddow had a segment last night about how the party is advertising its success in securing the relief package (and calling out by name local Repubs for voting against it) and touting the benefits to individual taxpayers/voters. Good for them!
I also saw Buttigieg on CNN earlier in the evening talking up the infrastructure bill. He is excellent at jousting with skeptical anchors. I do think it’s more than a stretch to include child care and elder care as “infrastructure,” but he sold that position as ably as anyone could have!
Spanky
@Baud: He should live so long.
Baud
I don’t click on Hunter Biden stories, but the headlines on my feed suggest the mainstream media is focusing on his battle with addiction. Good.
MJS
Republicans in the House and Senate really are screwed. A vote for anything proposed by the Dems guarantees they’ll be primaried, and given the current bat-shit insanity of their party, they probably lose. Voting against everything opens at least a few of them up to general election losses.
NotMax
Turns out Wondermark broadly presaged the Dolt 45 term of office, way back in 2005.
:)
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I buy it. Anything that enables the country to run more smoothly and more effectively, like child care, is infrastructure.
debbie
@Baud:
Which also humanizes Joe even more.
p.a.
Possibly the Parliamentarian was paying attention to those ‘parliamentarians are replaceable’ articles from a while back…??
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: Most of the states have been doing that anyway. it’s getting to be a competition, but everyone gets credit.
debbie
It’s fun to see Ohio’s SoS (and wannabe Senator) John Husted getting slapped around for tweeting about the China virus last week. He’s going to be meeting with Asian-American families to “listen” to their objections about his slur.
All that political capital gained by his pandemic performance, gone *poof* in the time it took to publish a tweet. Lovely!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I listened to Buttegieg’s Sunday appearance on Meet the Press. Wow! Can that guy communicate!
The Republicans got their asses kicked on the the Covid relief bill, and they know it. I think they have yet to recover from the unexpected shock of a Senate controlled by the Democrats. They never believed they would lose both Georgia Senate seats. Three month’s later, what strategy they have is to gripe and whine.
Karen S.
Good morning, all. I’m taking my parents to get the second dose of the Pfizer vax this morning. The Chicago suburb where they live organized a mass vaccination event last month for its senior residents. It was a well run event. My parents had no side effects from the first jab except for a little soreness at the injection site. I’m hoping that the second shot will be as uneventful. They’re elderly (93 years old) and I’ve heard that people that old tend not to have severe side effects. My mom tested positive for Covid late last year when she was in a nursing home (after being hospitalized with pneumonia) but was asymptomatic. I know she isn’t indestructible, but I admit I’m surprised she’s still here and doing as well as she is, all things considered.
WereBear
I love the Biden Administration strategy, especially since it’s working :)
debbie
@Geminid:
And suppress voting.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Karen S.: Good. I hope this second event goes as well.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: That was Buttigieg’s argument, and I approve of the tactic and hope they pass the bill that includes funding for those services. But I can also understand why it sends opponents into a sputtering rage because it expands the commonly understood definition of “infrastructure” to encompass almost anything.
Buttigieg understands this, and his clever rhetorical device is to scoff at more iffy objections, such as arguments against including broadband as infrastructure. He compares that to opposition to electrification generations ago, leading viewers down that path to realize the definition evolves and thus making them more receptive to expanding the definition to include things like childcare.
He understands how narrative and persuasion work. He would have been a great ad man. :)
Dorothy A. Winsor
Republicans’ real objection to this infrastructure bill appears to be that corporations and well-off people will have their taxes increased to pay for it. IMHO, those groups are ridiculously undertaxed, and I say that as someone whose taxes might go up. Really, they should. I’d still be able to buy groceries.
WereBear
Sending opponents into a sputtering rage is a fine thing because it turns their fondness for “personal redefinition” inside out and uses it against them, only legitimately.
Mousebumples
Reminder for Wisconsin based Juicers – it’s Election Day! Vote for the WisDems endorsed State Superintendent candidate, and others on your local ballot.
We turned in our mail ballots this weekend in the drop box. Just need to make sure they’re “counted” since they weren’t yesterday…
randy khan
Thinking about it, I realize that the Biden campaign and transition foreshadowed how they would define unity as focusing on what the people think rather than on what elected Republicans think. Even using the word “unity” instead of “bipartisanship” was part of that.
Very nicely done.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: How’s yer pipes?
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: Agreed. It also prompts Republicans to appear on TV to argue against things that most Americans want. We’ll see how it shakes out in the midterms, but so far, the admin is making all the right moves, IMO, and Buttigieg is a terrific advocate, even for items that fall outside his transportation lane.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: “La la la la la…”
Seem OK this morn.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
It can’t be said enough and should become a standard talking point, like the GOP’s talking points about the evilness of liberalism and inclusion.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Truth
They really didn’t.
They are also shocked to deal with a Democratic Party that takes them at their word for what they’ve done over the past 12 years, and doesn’t come to the table with amnesia.
They are shocked that Democrats come to the table with only platitudes about listening to the muthaphuckas that they are.
I still chuckle at them coming with that $600 Billion dollar COVID Counter-proposal, and thought someone:
a) was going to take them seriously
b) allow them to waste their time watering down a good bill with bad faith actors.
I still crack up at the story of Ron Klain being in the room ‘ shaking his head no’, as they put forth their bullshyt in the OVAL with 46.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: All fixed. They came late in the morning, got the shut off valve to work, and rebuilt the faucet. So we didn’t even have water turned off elsewhere. It’s still not leaking this morning, so I was pleased.
John S.
@Betty Cracker: Buttigieg learned how to be a great ad man from working at McKinsey. They are masters at selling a narrative.
Mai Naem mobile
Whatever is happening to the GOP they have nobody to blame but themselves. Complaining about the Dems not giving them the time of day – they should have thought of that when they steamrolled the Dems in 2017-2018. The Dems not letting the GOP waste time obstructing is a result of what they did in ’09-’10. The chickens finally came home.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yay!
Ken
“I was showing the Secretary of State my family’s heirloom katana when it accidentally discharged.” No, too implausible.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
He was, wasn’t he? Worked for McKinsey, didn’t he?
John S.
@rikyrah: The Republicans also have punching themselves in the face and rhetorically asking “Why are you hitting yourself?”
Ken
@rikyrah: And yet, the Republicans are trying it again, with press releases about how they might be able to support a smaller infrastructure bill. I repeat what I said about the relief bill: After the Democrats pass the larger bill, they can say “What are the Republicans complaining about? They got everything they wanted, and more.”
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: But don’t you miss splashing in puddles? One of life’s purest joys.
Immanentize
@John S.: Corporations should take that to mean Corporations should not fund candidates or parties.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I can get on board that bus.
Soprano2
Yes, and they have stupidly made themselves irrelevant. McConnell was dumb to immediately come out and say no Republican was going to vote for the infrastructure bill. That made it so Democrats can do whatever they want because why not, Republicans have announced loudly that they want nothing to do with it. Are they really planning to run for re-election on Mr. Potatohead’s penis, Dr. Seuss, and whatever other silly “controversy” they can gin up before the next election?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I saw the cutest clip where a kid splashing in a puddle coaxed Dad to wade in and splash too. She took his hand and assured him he could do it. Eventually he joined her.
But that was outside. Not in their kitchen
Geminid
@debbie: Yes, Republican controlled legislatures are passing election laws they hope will discourage Democratic voters. Congress will have it’s say on these laws. So will the courts. Although weakened by Congress and the Supreme Court, the Civil Rights Act still applies to states from Arizona to Virginia. Federal courts intervened in Virginia twice in the last decade, remedying racial gerrymandering in Congressional and state Delegate districts.
Republicans seem to hope their voter suppression measures will stop a resurgent Democratic Party. They may be wrong. Republicans are impeding all voters to keep Democrats from winning. There may be blowback from all but the most partisan conservatives. As with gerrymandering, the Republicans are on the wrong side of broader public opinion on this matter.
And Democrats in Georgia and other states are determined to get out the vote, come hell or high water.
Soprano2
@John S.: Mitch was horrified to find out that corporations can be against Republicans, so suddenly they should stay out of politics. *rolleyes* I guess he doesn’t like it when the monster he created turns on him.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: We might be able to drive that bus over a few Republicans? Accidentally of course? For which we would be quite sad and regretful indeed.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Worst Seseme Street episode ever.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Soprano2: As I recall, corporations are supposed to be people now.
Kristine
@Karen S.: best wishes for you and your folks.
Ksmiami
@Geminid: now the Republicans are targeting Corporate America for calling them out on their election suppression so let’s see if they can drive their numbers to 27 percent…
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: I think he was a consultant at McKinsey, which is a role that has some functions in common with advertising folk but is not the same thing. My guess is most consultants would bristle at the suggestion that they’re ad people but possibly NOT vice versa! :)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Is there an explanation somewhere of what changed that let the parliamentarian rule in favor of more reconciliation?
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: If I’m behind the wheel, there won’t be any accidents.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ksmiami: It was pretty funny and satisfying to see McConnell screaming that actually corporations AREN’T people and should stay out of politics.
NotMax
@Ksmiami
Maybe McConnell will exert payback by rallying the Senate Rs to vote for restoring the corporate tax rate to pre-Dolt 45 levels.
//
Immanentize
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Quickly, as I understand it, reconciliation can happen in three areas — spending, taxing, and federal budget debt limits.
These often all get smooshed together, but they need not be. And you get all three for every budget year which starts in October. There were no such bills for this fiscal year and they can start passing stuff for next. I don’t know exactly what the relief versus jobs bill is, but it is possible that the jobs bill won’t start sending money out until October? Or is it a tax question? Dunno
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: When Pete Buttegieg worked for McKinsey, he obviously did not sell anything to the consumer market. But I think he did “sell” his teams’ proposed restructuring plans to management and owners, and I’d bet he was good at this.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: :-)
I’m not Jesus, but I will co-pilot.
ETA. Bye All! Let the Zoom day begin!
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Have a good day, Imma. :)
NotMax
Working through Loudermilk on Prime. By far won’t be everyone’s cup of Long Island iced tea. Has enough moments to continue with it in small doses but boy oh boy, there’s such a thing as trying too hard to be edgy.
karen marie
@p.a.: I’m not sure you understand the role of a parliamentarian.
SFAW
@Ken:
Or he could go with the Rush Limbaugh MO: “Can I speak with you in your language? Ching chong, chong ching ching chong. Chong ching?”
Yes, I actually heard that dead motherfucker say shit (i.e., the “Chinese”) like that. And before I heard HIM, I heard one of his fans say something very similar.
hueyplong
@SFAW: In this time of renewal it’s comforting to know that Rush Limbaugh is still dead and will remain so.
SFAW
@Geminid:
Almost, but not quite: in GA, they’re improving access for the rural a/k/a white a/k/a Rethug voters. Which is the fig leaf those fascists mofos (Kemp et al.) are using to claim they’re not suppressing votes.
OzarkHillbilly
That was self abuse. Hopefully you’ve gotten better since then.
germy
What do they do about Manchin?
Manchin warns Biden’s infrastructure bill is in trouble over corporate tax hikes
John S.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And now Mitch wants Citizens United Not Timid to be CANCELLED!
Oh the horror.
WereBear
Apparently, staffers in Schumer’s office found an obscure 1974 rule that will let the Democrats get THREE bites at the reconciliation apple.
Schumer Digs Up Obscure Budget Rule That Could Allow Dems to Bypass Filibuster
Geminid
@SFAW:That is true. But other measures, like restrictions on absentee ballots, affect all voters, particularly the elderly.
And while Georgia Republicans can improve access for rural voters, they still have to turn them out. I listened to election night coverage of the Georgia Senate runoff on WSB, the clear-channel Atlanta station. I remember one of their reporters describing his interviews with rural Republican county chairmen. He said they were “chagrined” at low turnout.
H.E.Wolf
I’ve noticed 3 people on this thread, whose contributions I usually enjoy reading, fantasizing about doing violence to others.
One fantasy was about using a bladed weapon to injure or kill someone, and the other two were about using a vehicle to cause deliberate harm to someone.
There’s a connection somewhere, with Anne Laurie’s post re: Matt Gaetz’s colleagues who went along with his photos of sexual predation instead of saying “Matt, no”… but I’m too dispirited to articulate it.
Ken
@WereBear: Wish someone would find an obscure Senate rule that says they operate by majority vote.
WereBear
@germy: Lieberman Syndrome. Nuking from space is the only way to be sure.
germy
I was watching the PBS Ken Burns documentary last night on old Ernie, and when they got to 1918-1920 I said to my wife “I bet there’s absolutely no mention of the pandemic.”
And there wasn’t. It doesn’t exist in the documentary. And Ernie and his pals were all over Europe. France, Spain, then America. But it didn’t affect them or anyone they knew.
That pandemic was completely memory-holed. I find it odd.
John S.
@germy: You can’t stop Manchin from preening and grandstanding — that’s every Senator’s god-given right. But you can kick his legs out from underneath him.
So far, Manchin has said that increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% would put us at a competitive disadvantage, but he is ok with an increase to 25%. So Yellen is already out there trying to get the G20 (we’re looking at YOU Ireland) to agree to a minimum corporate tax rate to level the playing field.
germy
@WereBear:
28% tax rate is too much for him.
Personally, I think it should be 80%… (but I have no votes)
Tom Levenson
@germy: many, many goodies for W. Virginia
germy
@John S.:
I bet that low forehead motherfucker never dreamed he’d have so much power.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: I suspect that childcare isn’t typically considered infrastructure because it involves, you know, women, and not manly men building things out of asphalt and steel.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Wow. Aside from that glaring oversight, how do you like the documentary so far? We plan to watch it eventually on our own schedule.
germy
@H.E.Wolf:
This is why Baud can never be president. Every time he runs, Republicans point to the violent remarks and say “This is where he comments!”
Kathleen
@Baud: That is probably due to his new book that just came out.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
I had never read a word of Ernie my whole life.
Then, last year I read a bunch of his novels and short stories.
Before that, I’d only known of him from the biographies of his contemporaries. And the parodies some of them had written in his style (James Thurber did “The Night Before Christmas” in the Hemingway style, for example)
I’m enjoying the documentary. He seems to be not as poor as he claimed to be in the early years. “The Moveable Feast” years. There was always his wife’s family money.
I admire his hard work, the obsessive dedication he put into getting every word right.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
I like the way you think.
OzarkHillbilly
Five ski through snowstorm after planes stranded on Alaska mountain
Litterbugs. They should pay a fine.
JMG
@John S.: Manchin is dickering with Schumer. This is how Congress used to function and the Trump era left us all out of practice in watching it. Many many years ago, the Senate Republicans would be playing Manchin’s role so they could get partial credit for any goodies in the bill. Now, GOP Congresspeople just lie and say they got the goodies for their districts when they voted against them.
O. Felix Culpa
@H.E.Wolf: Maybe because I just posted a chuckle-approval of one of those comments, I somewhat disagree. There are tongue-in-cheek comments and then there is death porn. Hard to say exactly where the line is, but I think the former in context is ok. But I’m open to convincing otherwise.
OzarkHillbilly
???
Betty Cracker
@germy: I look forward to seeing it — thanks for the mini-review! :)
Karen S.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: So do I.
OzarkHillbilly
@H.E.Wolf: Sometimes, I just can’t.
WereBear
@germy: One must read him in context for the full impact: much like The Beatles or Elvis get regarded in retrospect as “what’s the big deal?”
One needs to be exposed for what passed for popular music around that time to understand their electrifying impact. That entire category was drowning in what the Germans call Schlager.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Maybe I missed an update, but did your maintenance guys ever show up and fix that kitchen leak without causing further havoc?
NEVER MIND. Just saw your answer to raven
Sure Lurkalot
@debbie:
Covid adversely affected working women many of whom haven’t returned to the workforce because of lack of in person schooling and child care. Women are predominant in the care of the elderly, both unpaid and paid, and when paid, grossly under compensated.
A good infrastructure plan needs a workforce.
SiubhanDuinne
An adorable moment just now as Katie Porter sneezed (hygienically, into her elbow) on Stephanie Ruhle’s MSNBC program. “That’s my first sneeze on camera!”
germy
@WereBear:
I agree. He was revolutionary in taking the pared-down newspaper style and using it in novels. He showed everyone you don’t have to be Charles Dickens to write a book or short story.
Since Hemingway’s time, there have been so many imitators that it dilutes how amazing he was as an author.
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hemingway is the subject of the latest Ken Burns documentary.
OzarkHillbilly
‘I’d like to lock myself in a room’: an unflinching portrait of motherhood – in pictures Some of these pics stopped me cold.
Ken
@JMG: I’m so looking forward to the return of earmarks. It’ll give the Republican congresscritters one more reason to avoid their constituents. “But Pembrook County is getting a new library and all their roads repaved, and we didn’t get squat…”
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Thanx, I finally figured it out via other comments.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Whatever happens will be deliberate?
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: just now having your first cup of coffee?
Miss Bianca
@WereBear:
What exactly would be the “context” for reading Hemingway to actually like his work? I’ve read all through and around his era of literature, and I still find his stuff to be overhyped and underwhelming. Was forced to read a bunch of his novels in high school and college and I still haven’t been able to force myself to go back to that particular well. Never have understood what people found engaging about it. Oh well…that’s what makes horse races, is what my mama always used to say
ETA: I just remembered that apparently my grandmother felt the same way – and since Hemingway was some kind of family connection, and evidently knew about her distaste, he used to tweak her by sending her autographed copies of his books! Which have disappeared now….although one of my brothers alerted me that our family copy of “For Whom The Bell Tolls” turned up on some antiquarian book sale site. I suspect one of my nephews made off with it.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: My words speak for themselves. And just to clarify for those desirous of taking my words in the worst possible way, it is the political careers of certain individuals I would like to leave my muddy tire tracks on.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
hueyplong
@JMG: Agree. I’m not going to get all worked up about Manchin comments until something comes up for a vote and gives it the McCain thumbs-down. When he votes yes he is finishing up a process that keeps him from being to liberal to be re-elected and Dems in general are seen to have done something with perceived wider appeal.
It’s about time the Dems mastered the Kabuki routine the way GOPers did before they went all Horst Wessel on us.
Steve in the ATL
@Miss Bianca: I always found that Hemingway’s best stuff was fantastic, but anything less than his best was godawful. But at least he didn’t use 25 words when 5 would do.
WaterGirl
@John S.:
WaterGirl
@Ken: Yeah, I’m sure they would support an infrastructure bill that’s small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: I was confused too. I’ve seen him called “Papa”, but not “Ernie.”
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Yes! I could support that wholeheartedly!
Maybe we could even have a ruling that corporations ARE NOT PEOPLE.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: We’re gonna need a bigger bus!
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I was talking to my cousin just recently, and neither of us can remember a single instance of our grandparents or great-aunts or any of their contemporaries (all of whom were in their 20s or 30s at the time) even mentioning, let alone going into any detail about, the 1918+ pandemic. I don’t think it’s just Ken Burns. It’s that whole generation. For some reason, they all seem to have memory-holed that entire episode in world history.
Makes me wonder what people alive today will (or won’t) be willing to relate to their own grands and great-grands about the time of Covid-19.
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: Kind of like how the Brits ended up building 8 dreadnoughts in the runup to 1914?**
I could go for that, and I bet you could too!
** “It was … in 1909 that the naval-building ‘dreadnought panic’ commenced, which ultimately never subsided before the outbreak of war in 1914. The Navalist slogan referring to needed new dreadnoughts was, ‘We want eight and we won’t wait!’ Churchill observed, ‘The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.’”
germy
Here is some of Thurber’s Hemingway parody:
Miss Bianca
@Steve in the ATL:
I actually don’t mind that tendency – except when reading Thomas Carlyle, but I suspect it’s his reactionary politics that offended me more than his purple prose.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: Thank you for this
I agree that they were not serious comments. But in a time where the other side seems more and more to be driving vehicles into crowds of people, I appreciate your raising the issue.
Jeffro
Um yeah, it sure looks like it. Plus maybe a well-timed “caravan”
CARAVANNNZ!!!1!
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: we’ll be explaining this old timey thing called “streaming Netflix”
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes. Ken Burns didn’t mention the pandemic because Hemingway didn’t mention it. None of them did.
I’ve read so many authors and journalists of that time, and I rarely see it. I remember in one of Groucho Marx’s essays, he talks about doing a vaudeville show, and most of the seats are empty. The audience is seated far apart from each other, and they’re wearing masks. But it was just mentioned in passing, in an essay where the main focus was how tough it was getting laughs in vaudeville.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Well done, Thurber!
My favorite Hemingway parody was in a collection of responses from famous authors to the question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
I read “Laughter’s Gentle Soul” – a biography of Robert Benchley.
Benchley, known as the most polite guy in the world, actually ordered Hemingway away from his table one night.
Benchley was having dinner at some restaurant with his son and daughter-in-law. Hemingway sat down with them and started making lewd comments at the DIL.
Benchley told him to get the hell out.
I assume alcohol was a factor here.
Ken
“But didn’t you have a Soros chip streaming right into your brain 24/7?”
germy
@Ken:
“That wasn’t until after the COVID vaccines.”
Betty Cracker
@germy: I’ll have to check that biography out. I’ve always meant to read a biography of Benchley but haven’t gotten around to that somehow. What a fascinating life he had (and sad too).
WereBear
It’s individual taste more than anything.
I can’t stand Dickens, the only one I read and enjoyed was A Christmas Carol. And yet he is similarly celebrated… yet, from high school to now, nothing clicks with me. It’s still a slog.
In film, it’s the difference between the people who adore slice-of-life character studies and scorn genre. I’d far rather watch something like Asphalt Jungle, which has plenty of character development for anyone, but also a gripping story to be told.
Steeplejack (phone)
Score one for DougJ!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and the Nick Adams stories. But I tend to prefer Fitzgerald.
Steve in the ATL
@Steeplejack (phone): OMFG.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: concur on those books. As for Fitzgerald, I loved him when I was younger but find his work less appealing now. That’s more on his subject matter than his always excellent writing.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
To get a real sense of the man, the best biography was the one written by his son Nathaniel. Simply titled “Robert Benchley”
“Laughter’s Gentle Soul” fills in some of the sordid details his son (understandably) left out, but it contains some factual errors, like problems with dates and chronology.
Steeplejack (phone)
@John S.:
Eunicecycle
@SiubhanDuinne: I was recently thinking the same. My in-laws lived through it (obviously) as did my grandmother. But I don’t remember them ever discussing it. Maybe it’s survivor guilt type of thing. My fil also had smallpox as a young adult.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Interesting. I haven’t read Fitzgerald since my 20s. I have reread the best Hemingway stuff. That says something as well.
Betty Cracker
Alcee Hastings has died. He was crooked as a dog’s hind leg but preferable to any South Florida Republican nonetheless.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: Manchin’s the best Democratic Senator we’re going to get from WV for the forseeable future.
I am eternally grateful that the Democratic Party is being led by brilliant, pragmatic, dedicated and savvy professionals who pay not an iota of attention to the kind of case study in progressive-political Dunning-Kruger syndrome that blogs like this are infested with. The Democratic leadership is in general too courteous (and too busy doing more important things) to invite those of that ilk to go fuck themselves with a rusty chainsaw…but some of us are under no such limitation…
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker:
OK, now *that*? *That* is some real humor there!
@WereBear: Ah, see…I *love* Dickens. Maybe I’m just a Victorian at heart.
Nelle
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s actually an issue. Usually, wrecked planes have to be pulled out by helicopter but some places are just to remote. I remember hiking in to a supercub that got smashed into a mountain side by a down draft . We were retrieving the electronics. (Understatement of all time from then boyfriend, now husband, when I got up to Alaska one summer. I asked, “Where did you get that big bruise on your leg?” His reply, “I ran into something.” A mountain. He ran into a mountain.). My friends flew into the side of another mountain in a snowstorm (they survived and were found five days later). That wreckage is still there, as far as I know. Lots of planes down in remote areas up there.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Eunicecycle: My father’s mother died of complications of the pandemic flu—she was sufficiently weakened that she developed TB (still a problem in 1919 Mississippi) and died.
I don’t recall older people in my family talking about that pandemic otherwise, and of course my grandmother’s death didn’t come up that often.
Omnes Omnibus
@Uncle Cosmo: Yes, you are the only true soul who understands all. We mere mortals are ever so grateful that you deign to grace us with your presence so that we may writhe in humility at your feet. IOW blow it out your ass.
Ken
@Miss Bianca: It’s at http://www.whydidthechickencrosstheroad.com/authors.htm
Apparently the world has an entire website devoted to chicken-road jokes. Truly the Internet has exceeded all expectations.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
That’s great!
WereBear
@Miss Bianca: That’s okay. Some of my best friends love Dickens :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
Victorian? If you like Macaulay (prose stylings only) and Dickens, you may be.
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo: You know, if you’re that damn disgusted with us all the time, you can always just leave. It’s not like your contributions to the discussion, dedicated as they are to Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision, are going to be missed. *You* appear to find your churlish personal abuse of everyone and all to be highly diverting, but I take leave to doubt that anyone else does.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Darn. That cuts Speaker Pelosi’ majority to three or four votes, maybe. I think Richmond’s Louisiana seat and Haaland’s New Mexico seat will be filled by June. Marcia Fudge’s seat will not be filled until fall, though. Caucus Chairman Jefferies and others will be working hard to keep their caucus intact
Hakeem Jefferies grew up in Brooklyn, and likes to quote hometown rapper Biggie Small: “Spread Love, it’s the Brooklyn Way.” Wayward Democratic Caucus members may learn more about the Brooklyn Way in coming weeks.
zhena gogolia
@WereBear:
I used to love him, simply adore him. Now I can’t read him at all! I don’t know what it is, because I am a total Victorian. I can gobble up Trollope, Thackeray, and all the Brontes.
TomatoQueen
I asked my 90 year old auntie what she knew growing up about the 1918 flu, and she said she knew nothing, and so has asked around among her peers at the retirement home, and it was a similar story, not discussed. The consensus seems to be that so many families were affected, that it was simply too overwhelming to talk about.
smith
@SiubhanDuinne: My grandparents as well. They were all adults by the onset of WWI, and of course the pandemic, but I never heard anything about either from them. They did, however, talk about the Depression and WWII. Maybe because they had such eventful lives, and survived so many traumas, that only the most recent were still salient.
WereBear
@zhena gogolia: We grow and change, and that includes our tastes.
We can also over-expose ourselves. I still love Carson McCullers and Harlan Ellison, both of whom were short story writers, but I’ve also learned to read them a story at a time… savor the impact, and dodge the little “tells” every author has, but might not be evident in longer works.
Elizabelle
I knew about the 1918 Flu pandemic, but only because it took my great-aunt’s brand new husband. Very young. That was family lore. Knew about it from childhood, as a sad story. (Aunt Alma remarried but, of course, never forgot her first love and the shock of his loss.)
Otherwise: crickets. It is incredible, the erasing from memory. Although: occurring near the end of The Great War (soon to be the “First World War”). The rapid pace of change. Airplanes. Maybe people had dealt with enough change, and were ready to forget the most personally fearsome and deadly.
Anybody know if that is the case in other countries?
A Streeter
@SiubhanDuinne:
One of my grandfathers told a story of waking up in an improvised flu ward on his military base (WWI), thinking that he had to get out of there or die, and essentially sneaking out.
There seem to be no other family stories of that pandemic.
grandmaBear
@SiubhanDuinne: my mother mentioned it a number of times. She was born in 1918. Her mother & two of her four siblings died within two weeks in January 1919. She was given to a maiden aunt to raise then demanded back when her father remarried. Huge upheaval in the family. And we always got our shots.
Annie
@smith:
this, this this. When my grandfather died, at age 82, I found out for the first time that he had had a twin sister. She had died in childbirth in 1936. But between that time and his death, Grandfather had been through World War II, several work upheavals including leading a union organization effort, my grandmother’s several bouts with cancer, her death, and the deaths of 2 of his adult children. Life just washes over people sometimes.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Had the stars aligned such that Oscar Wilde wrote a biography of Hemingway it would have been titled “All That’s Important is Being Ernest.”
;)
Zelma
We actually had some family flu stories. My mother – 6 or 7 at the time – was sent to the local saloon by the doctor to get whiskey to treat her father. (Family were teetotalers, none in the house.). Her father survived which was amazing because he had miner’s asthma. She did lose an uncle to the disease. My best friend did some family research and discovered that her grandmother had died of the disease. Her mother was sent to an orphanage where she spent much of her childhood. Let’s say the mother had lots of attachment issues. There are thousands of stories like this but they were often buried. I wonder if the same thing will happen with COVID.
J R in WV
@hueyplong:
Senior Senator and Racist Strom Thurmond is STILL dead!
Former fascist President Richard Nixon is still dead!
Former brain dead President Ronald Reagan is STILL dead!
Former President Jimmy Carter is STILL ALIVE and well~!!!~
And Joe Biden is in charge~!!~
J R in WV
@WereBear:
I can’t stand Dickens, paid by the word, so just kept writing blech.
J R in WV
@Ken:
Rule 34? That MAY mean there must be porn about Chickens Crossing the Road?
Surely not!
NotMax
@J R in WV
Surely you’ve heard of fowl balls.
stinger
@germy: Dead thread, but Katherine Anne Porter wrote about the flu pandemic.