Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

I was promised a recession.

A consequence of cucumbers

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

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

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Everybody saw this coming.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republicans don’t trust women.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

You are here: Home / Books / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Blat from the Past

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Blat from the Past

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Or maybe that should be ‘shart from the past’…

Hey, Norman Rockwell’s painting was ‘controversial’ with a certain percentage of magazine readers — more than fifty years ago. I’m not sure this lady had even been born yet.

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  3. 3.

    Raven

    In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck described the travails of a six-year-old black girl chosen to integrate an all-white elementary school in the Deep South of 1960. At the time, he did not know her name. But thanks to the presentation of the Steinbeck Award to this civil rights icon on February 24, 2016, before a capacity crowd in the Student Union Ballroom, the names John Steinbeck and Ruby Bridges are now linked forever

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    Brilliant letter. Loved this.

    But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools. Even your own children are entitled to call you that.

  7. 7.

    Raven

    I re-read “Travels” and the last chapter is stunning. The white people opposing Ruby were exactly like these MAGA motherfuckers.

  8. 8.

    Math Guy

    I was in high school when I read about Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse Five” being burned in North Dakota. I promptly went out and bought the book and read it and from there went on to read nearly everything he published.

    Education often makes you uncomfortable: I should know, I teach mathematics at a university.

  10. 10.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Raven: It’s been decades since I read Steinbeck and, yeah, both those books are pretty “communist”, ain’t they?  But then, some of his other books (East of Eden ?) are pretty capitalist, from what I remember.  At the time, I was surprised that he turned so fiercely away from his early beliefs.  Ah, well.

  13. 13.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Anne Laurie: Ah, I read “blat” and saw a big of clay dropped from a great height onto the pavement.  But no particular sound.  Now I hear the sound!

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    @Anne Laurie:   I just did.  It is to make a bleating sound.  Enough.

    There is so many internet slang. Figured this was just some word that would make sense in context.  What is wrong with using a word that instantly gets the point across?

  18. 18.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Elizabelle:

    What is wrong with using a word that instantly gets the point across?

    To be fair to AL, once one is …. (uh) adequately well-read, it makes perfect sense.  Also, TIL the meaning of blat!

  19. 19.

    Redshift

    “Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students “feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish.”

    The law doesn’t say anything about it making parents feel that way, so it almost certainly doesn’t apply in this case. (I suppose I shouldn’t give them ideas; I’m sure the TN legislature would be more than happy to make it illegal to teach students anything that makes their parents uncomfortable.)

  21. 21.

    Scout211

    Open thread-ish? For those of us from the House of Moderna:  The FDA is “leaning” toward approving a booster of the Moderna vaccine at half dose. Source

    Sept 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is leaning toward authorizing half-dose booster shots of the Moderna Inc (MRNA.O)COVID-19 vaccine, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
    The FDA had been seeking information about the effectiveness of a full third dose of the Moderna vaccine, but is now ready to move forward and consider the half-dose booster Moderna has proposed, the report said.

  22. 22.

    CarolPW

    @Chetan Murthy: It must be an age thing – I’m a bit older than Anne and blat is a very familiar word, but I have not seen it used in a long time. A complaint about it is a bit like like complaining about someone using furbelow.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    Given the history of White people in America (and not just the former Confederacy), I would respectfully submit that any school system that doesn’t make White children “feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish” isn’t doing its job.

  25. 25.

    justawriter

    My poor home state. It did used to have some civilized sections. But most of the civilized folks left for warmer weather, better food, higher pay, or to get away from their increasingly redneck neighbors. After Republican Al Olson and his successor, Democrat George “Bud” Sinner took board of directors positions with Minneapolis based companies, the joke was “Even North Dakota Governors have to go to Minnesota to find a decent job.”

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    @billcinsd: 

    What would happen if a young student of color used 51-6 in Tennessee to come down on white history

    Whoever it is who decides this stuff would rule they were just faking it to cause trouble. Everyone knows the whole point of the legislation is to let white people shut down history that talks about non-whites.

  30. 30.

    MagdaInBlack

    When I first encountered this sort of information ( in college because it certainly wasn’t taught in my HS) I did feel pretty uncomfortable and yes, guilty. But I’ve come around to realize I am not responsible for what was done in the past. My responsibility is to educate myself so I can do my part to make sure it does not continue.
    How can we fix something if we don’t understand what happened to get us here?
    ( I do realize that these folks who are throwing childish fits over this don’t think there’s anything that needs to be fixed)

    Eta: I knew exactly what you meant by  “Blat.”

  32. 32.

    CarolPW

    @MagdaInBlack: I watched that stuff on TV in real time: police dogs, fire hoses, lunch counter condiments poured over people. I will never forget it. And reading about bombed dead little girls my age. I think because so many people alive now have not seen that stuff it’s like something mythical or exaggerated. Like it is harder for those who did not live in that time to believe, in a very visceral way, in the holocaust.

    Any time this racist shit shows up, a media defending diversity and democracy would re-air all Jim Crow and holocaust footage, over and over again.

  33. 33.

    MagdaInBlack

    @CarolPW: I was born in 1958, so I saw it too, and my parents explained what was going on and why. But it wasn’t until college that I took the history and sociology classes that laid out just how ugly some of our history is.

    I was a “non-traditional” student, meaning I was taking these classes at the age of 36.  Having lived through the Civil Rights era, it meant a whole lot more to me than it did to the more traditional students.

  35. 35.

    JaneE

    “Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students “feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish.”

    Are there any Black or other minority children in Tennessee schools?  I suggest that they could find more than a few things in their textbooks to cause them discomfort.  I find it despicable that so many traditional American feel-good falsehoods are still taught without disclaimers.

    There are lots of problems with teaching history.  You have to pick and choose what you consider important, and after just a couple of hundred years a good many important things are skimmed over or skipped entirely, because.  We don’t depict the Europeans who colonized this country as invading hordes of immigrants, but they were not really all that different to the refugees and immigrants coming to our borders today.  Bias counts.

  36. 36.

    Kent

    @billcinsd:What would happen if a young student of color used 51-6 in Tennessee to come down on white history

    Hell, Calculus made my daughter feel discomfort and anguish.  Can she get the AP Calculus text banned?

  37. 37.

    Kent

    @burnspbesq:Given the history of White people in America (and not just the former Confederacy), I would respectfully submit that any school system that doesn’t make White children “feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish” isn’t doing its job.

    Teacher here.  What the smart ones feel generally isn’t discomfort.  It is rage and disappointment about their elders.   There is a difference.

  38. 38.

    Starboard Tack

    Real education requires discomfort, self-doubt and sense of unease. Otherwise, it’s just training.

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