Special one-night-only screenings on April 11. In additional theaters and on digital April 21.
http://littlericharddocumentary.com/Produced by Bungalow Media + Entertainment for CNN Films and HBO Max, in association with Rolling Stone Films, director Lisa Cortés’ Sundance opening night documentary LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything…
World Cup 2026 to switch back to four-team groups https://t.co/0WpMZ5kPza
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 14, 2023
Praying to Murphy the Trickster God that Dave A has more free time in 2026 (or that former front-pager Randinho returns!), because just reading about this schedule is making my eyes cross…
The celebration of maximalist excess that will be the 2026 World Cup just got a little bit bigger. Having already ballooned the world’s biggest soccer tournament to 48 teams, FIFA has now withdrawn its proposed plan to have three-team groups in favor of keeping the four-team groups that the World Cup has historically had. This means that, when the dust clears in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, there will have been 104 games played to crown a champion. For reference, the 2022 World Cup—and every other World Cup with 32 teams, dating back to 1998—had a pitiful-by-comparison 64 matches…
By moving back to four-team groups, FIFA is resolving the most pressing issues of the 2026 World Cup, but it is opening up more problems that come with the gargantuan nature of a 48-team World Cup. The first is one of time: How do you fit in 104 games into a month, as every World Cup has usually fallen into that time frame? The answer appears to be that you don’t: FIFA is currently planning to stretch the tournament out nine more days, while shortening the pre-tournament training window from 23 days to 16. In theory, this should keep the tournament at around the same amount of time for players, albeit with more of a crunch from the end of the club soccer season…
In all, though, this feels like a net positive of a change for a World Cup that is already such a big undertaking and a big shift from the traditions of the tournament. Throwing in more games is, on paper, a boon for fans, especially those from countries who will likely not scrape through to the knockout rounds. Speaking as a Venezuelan, I would have been disappointed if my country had made it to the World Cup for the first time ever, only to go home after just two games. As for the strain that a longer World Cup will put on the club soccer seasons, both the preceding one and the one that follows, well … FIFA already made it clear that it doesn’t care about that with the mid-season 2022 World Cup, so this change falls in line with the organization’s current philosophy: more money for them, more problems for everyone else.
Popular for me, at least:
This is a prototype of the spacesuit that astronauts plan to wear on @NASA’s #Artemis III mission to the moon, scheduled for 2025 https://t.co/BImhtxDffT pic.twitter.com/cudhrsEyDo
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 16, 2023
it's super cool that they're focusing both on fitting significantly more body types *and* significantly improving range of motion.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) March 16, 2023
I enjoy that they made the display article black because it looked cool–but the ones worn on the moon will be white. also little to no rearward visiblity in case of an alien attack, smh pic.twitter.com/qmmUg5oQ8u
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) March 16, 2023
(Special reference to the 1:30 mark)
On The Road – BigJimSlade – Hiking in the Alps, Chamonix and Grindelwald 2022, First to Schynige Platte – Faulhorn
Baud
God i hope Biden is president in 2026.
Matt McIrvin
I’m still skeptical about the Artemis program and particularly that 2025 date for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that the lunar landing system is supposed to be based on Starship, the project that SpaceX seems to keep running to distract Elon Musk so they can get their actual work done. Has that lander gotten anywhere beyond the vaporware stage?
ARoomWithAMoose
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1636303923479805955
“Official footage released by the U.S. Air Force of the collision between a Russian Su-27 and US MQ-9 over the Black Sea.”
raven
Little Richard is in 15 episodes of “The History of Rock in 500 Songs!”
raven
@Matt McIrvin: She’ll be heading to the dog park in a minute!
Kay
This is a good investigation and debunking:
It’s by Josh Marshall.
The funniest thing about it is how it reveals just how much of the woke panic is centered on or around the absolute fear of Black Lives Matter. Give to a college fund for AA students? AA students become “Black Lives Matter”.
BLM (and to a lesser but crucial extent, Me Too) sent them all ’round the bend into crazytown.
Incidentally, we complain all the time about media here (well, I do). Talking Points Memo is liberal media. Unlike Substackers, Josh Marshall pays reporters too and runs a union shop. I subscribe.
Dorothy A. Winsor
That suit looks like Buzz Lightyear.
Baud
@Kay:
I stopped paying attention to TPM a while ago and now I’ve forgotten why. But it does do valuable work that other outlets won’t touch.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
@Baud:
I subscribed years ago for their work on voting rights (which is some of the best out there) but like you I drifted away. I just restarted this year. I think they played a big role in “normalizing” reporting on voting rights from the perspective of voter supression. No one remembers this but the truth is at the beginning of the big, modern push to disenfranchise (2000, and George W Bush) media completely bought into the voter fraud arguments on the Right. That bled into liberals and Democrats believing it. Back in the day I would do posts n voting rights here on Balloon Juice and good liberals would defend voter ID. Anyway- TPM made it acceptable to talk about the laws from the view of THE VOTER.
Geminid
Janet Yellen will testify before the Zenate Finance Committee this morning, starting at 10 am. The session was scheduled a few weeks ago and originally, the Treasury Secretary planned to advocate for President Biden’s budget. She still will, but Senators will talk a lot about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, possibly ending their speeches with questions for Yellen.
Kay
@rikyrah:
My older grandchild, the 3 year old, is flying into Detroit tommorrow and she wants to know if she should bring “a fancy dress”.
I told her “absolutely!” – now I have to think of somewhere to take her in the dress in this town :)
JCJ
@Kay: An ice cream store seems to me the perfect place to take a 3 year old wearing a fancy dress!
Betty
The changes to the World Cup are in line with how professional sports keep extending their seasons, making more money for some, giving fans more entertainment but not focusing much on the cost to the athletes.
Baud
@Kay:
TPM probably wrote some story or set of stories that pissed me off at some point. I tend to quit people pretty easily. It’s not necessarily a great quality.
Kay
Somebody made a good point about the antiwoke warriors. Why should they get to redefine “woke”?
The word had a meaning before they all decided to monetize it for personal or political gain. Why can’t we just keep the original meaning rather than some garbled, nonsense meaning the antiwokes pull out of their ass? Their work is junk. Why would we allow them to redefine words that already had accepted and perfectly good definitions? Who cares what they think words mean in their tiny, elite clique?
Baud
@Kay:
Cow tipping!
ETA: just kidding. Please don’t tip cows, people.
Baud
@Kay:
We always do that. It started with FREEDOM.
Geminid
@Baud: Now that Michigan Democrats have repealed its Right to Work law, maybe they will pass a Right to Woke law that better defines the term.
JMG
I was lucky enough to see Little Richard in person, at the Atlantic City Pop Festival in 1969. He was the last act after Janis Joplin (a huge Philly area favorite). He sent ’em home happy.
Baud
@Geminid:
I’d prefer a right to nap law.
Kay
@JCJ:
Oh, that’s good. In addition to some really nice jewelry, my mother in law left me her whole collection of department store costume jewelry when she died. I don’t use that type of jewelry so I’ve been saving it for the baby – I think she’ll get a huge kick out of picking “jewels” for her outfits. Like my daughter though, the baby goes thru my house and asks for things. They’re both outrageous. They just pick things up and say “can I have this?” :)
Lapassionara
I’m glad to see that there is a Little Richard documentary. He was my favorite rock and roll star when I was young, and I was so sad when he announced he was going to be a minister. Thank goodness he reconsidered, and I was able to see him live at the House of Blues in Atlanta, during the Olympics. Thanks, AL, for posting.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Marshall created an impressive media organization at TPM, and AFAIK, he’s not a trust funder and has no billionaire benefactors, so he did it on a shoestring when the industry’s business model was falling apart. That makes it all the more impressive. Imagine if the eBay billionaire who wanted to create a liberal media network would have given a pile of cash to Marshall instead of wasting it on a bilious hack like Greenwald!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I love him but you were “good at Twitter” so can judge so I’ll ask you. I think he’s bad at Twitter :)
Twitter, like poetry, is about economy of language. Marshall uses it like a blog. Just wrong. He’s one of those 1/476 people Doug J makes fun of.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
Seemed to need the bolded addition, given that that term is so frequently applied to the bothsidesing mainstream media.
I’ve been subscribing to TPM for many years now, and paying the extra bucks for the ad-free option too.
When his staffers told him they’d organized themselves into a union, his response was basically, “Cool, where do I sign to officially recognize you?”
That won my heart. There have been plenty of outfits on the left that are pro-union until their own employees organize, at which point they say they’re too pure for their workers to need a union, and their mission is too critical to have to deal with one. So it really meant something when Josh didn’t come up with some bullshit about why his employees shouldn’t be unionized.
And their reporting is first rate. His people from five or ten years ago have all been hired by bigger, more well-known outlets.
Dagaetch
@Kay:
Is there a place that does high tea? My mom loves taking her granddaughter for that, the little sandwiches and treats are great fun for a kid.
sab
@Kay: Just say no.
I am so sorry about your mother in law. You have mentioned her before and she seemed to be so cool.
oldster
Years ago I saw a clip of Little Richard paying tribute to another musician (I don’t remember who — let’s say Buddy Holly?), and after a minute or two of the normal platitudes about how Holly was a giant and a genius and a great man, he gets a huge smile on his face and says, “but there’s only one Little Richard! Cain’t be no mo!” The irrepressible vanity is charming.
Can anyone help me identify this clip? Was it, eg a trailer for a biopic?
sab
,
oldster
@lowtechcyclist:
“His people from five or ten years ago have all been hired by bigger, more well-known outlets.”
This is important — he has created an institution for nurturing and training progressive journalists who then go do good work elsewhere. When you support TPM, as I do, you are supporting a crucial part of the progressive media ecosystem at large.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Now I’m wondering if Josh Marshall has resisted investment offers or if he just hasn’t received any.
Soprano2
@Kay: They can’t even define “woke”. For the panic-inducers it means “things I don’t like”. To me what it means is caring about other people and their feelings and respecting them, and they don’t want to do that but don’t want to admit it either because it makes them sound like the assholes they are.
George Will wrote a column whining about what happened with the conservative asshole judge at Stanford. Sounds like the students were kind of rowdy and rude, but so was the judge. He never mentions how rude the judge was to the students. The judge set a bad example of how a judge behaves, so why should the students behave better? As I said to someone once, I’m not going to let someone else’s behavior dictate how I behave. He didn’t have to be an asshole to them, but it sounds like he came there with just that objective. This is a judge who defiantly misgendered someone in his courtroom, so that’s what he’s like.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Did he say he liked beer too?
Kay
@sab:
She was great but don’t be sad. She was 93 and she outlived 3 husbands and all of her friends. She had a really good life and was ready to go.
At the end, the last couple of weeks when she (voluntarily) stopped eating I asked her if she needed anything for her bedroom and she said “no, I’m on my favorite sheets” – she liked super high quality sheets :)
She had really blue eyes – like bachelor button blue- and the (good) jewelry she chose accented that – my younger grandaughter – the little girl in Denmark- has those same color eyes so I’ll give her the expensive jewlery when she’s older.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: John Stoehr has another good liberal site, The Editorial Board. It’s a small operation that does not do reporting like Josh Marshall’s outfit, but publishes op-eds by himself and others. Stoehr sometimes features pieces by fledgling commentator Magdi Jacobs (aka Mangy Jay), which tells me he has a good eye for new talent.
Stoehr charges a $6 a month subscription, but he often puts up non-paywalled pieces, like his “Bethany Mandel and the Makebelievers” published yesterday.
Wanderer
@Baud: I am with you 1000%.
Soprano2
@Baud: Don’t know, but I subscribe and pay for the ad-free version. I suspect he would resist them because that inevitably leads to meddling or perceived meddling.
Soprano2
@Baud: No, but that’s what he’s like. I watched a couple of clips of the interaction. He was snide and dismissive of the student questions. He’s a snowflake, just like most of them are, and can’t stand to be questioned by people he thinks are beneath him.
Eunicecycle
@Geminid: I ran across that article from John Stoehr yesterday on Twitter and thought it was great, but didn’t know what The Editorial Board was. Thanks for the info.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Strange, my work Web filter identifies that site as “advertising” and blocks it.
Baud
@Soprano2:
That happens a lot. Web filters often misclassify websites.
Kay
@Soprano2:
The ass kissing to the judge by Stanford is how law school is- law schools are packed full of ass kissers to the powerful. It’s a wonder they turn out any defense attorneys or others who take positions contra to the powerful at all, let alone “encourage” it. I don’t know who told substackers that law schools are “liberal” but law schools reward and promote the most conventional people and the biggest suck ups. It’s part of why people find the training so miserable.
I love how all these (self described, lol) “brave and courageous” woke fighters always seem to end up on the side of the most powerful person or people in any situation. They’ll go to the mat for that federal judge! They don’t protect or advocate for anyone elses rights, but show them a CEO, Senator, or federal judge and they will be there with bells on, defending him (and it’s always him).
It shows you what a mess their theory is and how poorly thought out their work is, too. The law students have a speech right too. Dissent is ACTUALLY part of free speech. Once again they are wrapped around the axel of their own crusade because they are sloppy, lazy thinkers. But pay attention to which speaker they protect- always the most powerful speakers, because in addition to their other fine qualities, the anti wokes are asskissers to the powerful. They protect THE STATUS QUO and that means they mostly protect the powerful.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Under the word’s original meaning I didn’t feel qualified to use it. Still don’t. There’s a hard limit to how aware I can possibly be.
lowtechcyclist
From MedPage Today:
Good.
Benw
I guess the new spacesuits are white because of heat dissipation; it’s no fun to be exposed to the sun without an atmosphere. Also, white blends in with the moon’s surface when the aliens attack!
MomSense
@Kay:
The same thing happened when I visited my grandma when I was four. The only place on the island where she lived was a clam shack. It was the only business on the island. My grandma put my hair in fancy braids and I ate fried clams in all my splendor. The photo of us together at the clam shack was a favorite of hers.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I support several news sites, from TPM to the Kyiv Independent, but I gotta admit, I’m not ready to pay for opinions.
Baud
@Benw:
Would a mirrored surface be warmer or cooler than a white surface? Something I’ve always wondered.
Kay
@Soprano2:
In this lawyers’ opinion, federal judges are out of control and have forgotten any humility or sense of proper place they might once have had. That judge didn’t go there to speak. He went there to own the libs. If he wants to run for office he should resign from the bench and do that. He doesn’t get the lifetime appointment with no quality controls or reviews of any kind AND get to behave like a Right wing you tuber. I’m not paying him for that.
Term limits is the only thing that will cure this. We have created egotistical, out of control monsters. Rein em in.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: If they reflect the same amount of light, the same. The difference is just where it gets reflected to. That is, for a mirror the angle of incidence equals angle of reflection (but on the other side of the perpendicular), whereas with a white surface it scatters in many directions.
Kay
@MomSense:
Oh, that’s nice. She has older girl cousins on her father’s side so they give her hand me down dresses- she has quite the collection. They attend a Methodist church in NY and getting dressed up is a big part of it for her. It’s an older congregation and Methodists are the smallest Protestant group, nationally, so the church members really lavish her with attention. One of our magistates is a Methodist and I told her the baby was getting christened in that church and she said “good! We need her!” lol. A lot to put on her tiny shoulders!
Sure Lurkalot
@Soprano2:
https://www.wonkette.com/anti-woke-book-author-bethany-mandel-blindsided-by-liberal-trick-question-what-is-woke
Matt McIrvin
…though for thermal control, you care about reflectivity in the infrared which the makers of white pigments don’t necessarily. Gold is really good at reflecting infrared light but is non-uniform enough in the visible to look golden.
frosty
@raven: I just glanced at “500 Songs”. It looks good, but after reading the text for one episode on the Monkees, I don’t think I’ve got time to go down the entire rabbit hole. I’ll bookmark it just in case, though.
stinger
@Baud:
I always do, when they’re really good at tickling the ivories.
Benw
@Baud: I’m not an expert – we need dmislev, or Tom – but I think anything that doesn’t absorb energy wins, so a mirror would be best. And maximally confusing to the alien invaders!
ETA: we have Matt! So much interesting expertise on this blog
Kay
What I love is how she’s just clearly enjoying herself.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I was not suggesting you subscribe, just putting the word about The Editorial Board out there. Personally, I usually pass on op-ed pieces even when they’re free. Stoehr’s efforts add more value than most, though.
geg6
@raven:
Pretty much as he should be. I love that podcast.
ETA: I will definitely be catching that doc. Should be absolutely fascinating.
Princess
@Kay: Completely agree. They bleat about free speech but it’s not about free speech at all, it’s about who has access to the money and power that allows them to invite who they choose to campus. They want to bring the judge in and they’re the ones with the resources to do it, and they expect the students to sit and listen quietly. Then they talk about the “free exchange of ideas.” It’s not free at all; it’s bought and paid for — the travel, the speaker’s fee, everything, and it’s not cheap.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Haha, I agree that Twitter is not Marshall’s forte! ;-)
I feel stupid sometimes about how much I miss Twitter. My husband is glad I quit because now I can pay more attention to him, but damn it, I miss the window to the world it provided. I’ve always disliked Musk on general principles, but now I despise him in a deeply personal way. The fucker!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Maybe, but that was en route to their third lap around crazy town.
geg6
@Kay:
Totally agree. It’s my most trusted news source for politics. Just stellar work being done there. I also enjoy his weekly podcast.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I still learn a lot about racism and sexism though. The Rights reaction to Obama exceeded even my estimation of racism in this country (was quite high) and the treatment of Clnton exceeded what I know about sexism. The study that showed AA children are punished more harshly than white children in schools for the same offenses as white children came out 5 years ago. This is bias. It has to be corrected for or AA children will continue to harmed.
This idea the antiwokes have that they should not have to learn anything past college is sort of amazing for people who call themselves professional writers or thinkers or pundits.
Kay
@Princess:
God he was just dripping with contempt for the liberal students. What a public servant, right? Who the fuck does he think he works for? The Federalist Society?
Go watch an Alito speech and compare. Same contempt. It’s how Right wing judges are now- they think they are kings or something. We all saw it in action with Kavanaugh. Remember when he yelled at us and vowed revenge? Jesus Christ. Put some term limits in- these people are off the rails.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Thanks!
Kay
@Princess:
The offended Right wing judge is still making demands, btw. He insists Stanford issue some (further) ridiculous ass kissing “statement” for other Right wing judges.
They walk around with a perpetual giant chip on their shoulders, expect and demand groveling worship, and we idiotically gave people like this LIFETIME tenure. They can’t have it! They have giant egos, are of poor character and the power and complete lackof accountability on the federal bench has gone to their heads. 10 year terms. Ten and done. At least then we won’t be stuck with the poor quality hires for life.
geg6
@frosty:
I discovered it during shutdown and listened to multiple episodes over several weeks. I’m all caught up and I am loving it. It’s perfect for when I’m doing something mindless or uncomplicated like cooking prep, laundry or housework. I listen to a lot of podcasts and it’s in my top 3.
Jeffro
THIS.
I saw someone tweeting yesterday about how it’s interesting that these college students – these young adults – are supposed to either shut up and listen, or think exactly like their (conservative) parents. Being exposed to new ideas, much less being able to make up their own minds about issues, is completely off the table. As if they continue to be the property of their parents throughout their 20s (and presumably beyond).
I mentioned this to Mrs. Fro while we were walking the dog this morning and her jaw just about hit the ground, so hey, pretty good insight right? =)
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Tradition. We (the U.S.) have been happy to let them do it for at least 40 years that I can account for.
Jeffro
This is part of the same mindset I just mentioned in the comment above, I think. They know what they know, they’re right, no need to change or react to new information, no need to stretch and grow.
And god forbid if you try and expose their (18 years and older, ie, young adult) “kids” to any new info or alternate theories or other policy proposals. Noooooope.
sab
I cannot believe that after decades I only just now learned that the romantic on the planet music in Star Trek was Ravel harp concerto which I had known about for decades but never actually heard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: What percentage of federal judge do you estimate fall into this behavior pattern? I ask because my experience has not been the same. A ten year term would clear the benches of judges who had really just gotten good at their jobs as well as the bad ones. I am not sure that your prescription would improve the judiciary overall.
Kirk Spencer
I know it isn’t the original meaning but I’ve taken to telling people it means “Love your neighbor as yourself,” then asking why they object.
geg6
@sab:
Speaking of Star Trek…
I have been binge watching the entire run of TNG for the first time in decades. I am astonished at how relevant so many of the plot lines still are. And it’s still my favorite Trek of all.
sab
@Kay: With term limits how do we prevent them from auditioning for their next job while on the bench (see Ohio legislature).
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
These students need to be more open-minded. One should be willing to listen to a speaker no matter how many lies they tell or how many failures of logic.
tam1MI
Desantis’s thuggish treatment of the New College in Florida may have backfired:
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article273125225.html
Yutsano
The “Twin Spica” theme hits hard right now, especially since Japan just had an aborted rocket launch just last month. Yeah this is kind of spoilers for the show but I figure by now everyone has watched it who wants to.
Ken
First, aliens always attack through the faceplate, well-known fact.
Second, if there were some horrible variant that attacked from behind, would you want to see it coming?
Redshift
@Soprano2:
That’s what all of their scare-words mean, going back a long way – “liberal”, “bias,” “elite,” and so on. It’s what happens when you don’t actually care about anything real, just convincing people they should be outraged.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Giving to a college fund for African American students is a recognition of systemic bigotry. They are using ‘woke’ correctly. They are not using BLM correctly.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Kay: At the moment, I figure there are only three Justices on the Supreme Court.
Betty Cracker
@tam1MI: Good for Hampshire College — I love the statement that makes. But I don’t know if the offer will help current New College students because of the cost disparity, unless “matching” means Hampshire College will let students continue their education up north at the same rate they paid down here. One of the unique things about New College is that it was a low-cost alternative.
Something that might get the bullies’ attention is alumni funding drying up, and I’ve heard that’s already happening. But the bullies are probably okay with that. Basically, they want to destroy New College as an institution, and they are succeeding. It’s incredibly sad.
Soprano2
@Kay: Geez I still learn things about the place I work and I’ve been here for 30 years! I’m the person people ask when they don’t know what to do because I usually can either help them or know who can. It’s arrogant to think you already know everything there is to know and don’t need to learn anything else.
Geminid
@Redshift: I think Republicans believe they have found the perfect dogwhistle in the term “Woke.” The word comes out of African American vernacular, and sounds like it. It also sounds similar to “Black”; when politicians warn of radical “Woke Mobs” threatening our communities, it’s obvious who they are really talking about.
Recently I’ve seen the term used as a pejorative by Left-wing opponents of the Democratic Party. That would seem odd, except that there is a strain of anti-Blackness among that crowd, and it was aggravated by the role Black Democrats played in Joe Biden’s nomination and election win in 2020.
Redshift
@Kay:
I don’t think we should waste our time arguing directly against their appropriation of the term, but I agree it’s important not to stop using it just because they’re trying to demonize it.
Soprano2
@Kay: They think they have the right to never be challenged or insulted or disagreed with. It’s revolting.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Some states have term limits on governors, and that could be both good and bad.
If you assume a good-faith actor, someone who wants to actually govern and serve the people, then getting reelected doesn’t factor in, and a good guy governor could potentially get a lot done.
But these days, if the governor is Republican, they seem to be the opposite of good-faith actors, and they try to burn down as much as they can for as long as they can, in the relatively short time that they have.
Not the same as judges, but term limits are a dual-edged sword.
Frankensteinbeck
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Gorsich’s support for transgender inclusion in sex discrimination rules surprised me. I read a lot of SCOTUS watchers on Twitter. I have come to these conclusions:
Gorsuch is a judge with an arch-conservative legal theory.
Alito lives to stick it to the libs, while using enough fancy words to pat himself on the back.
Clarence Thomas wears his underpants on his head.
Kavanaugh is an incompetent.
Barrett is an ideologue.
Roberts wants to be a thumb on the scales.
They all care about law way more than you would think, but since you would think they don’t care about it at all that’s a damned low bar.
raven
@frosty: I listen to them while I “aqua-jog” for my 45 daily.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I think the article said they would match the tuition they are currently paying at New School.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: A Governor really needs two terms to best accomplish lasting progress in a state. My theory is that this is why long ago, Virginia’s conservative elite instituted the state’s one term limit for its Governors.
This feature works to Governor Youngkin’s political advantage. He would struggle to win reelection but because he can’t even try, Youngkin gets to walk away a winner.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I can totally believe that. If enough Dems are elected in VA, maybe that can be changed. Two terms would be better than one.
Another Scott
@Baud: That’s actually a question that is not easily answered without defining what you mean by “white” and what you mean by “mirror”. The optical properties of surfaces are a function of the wavelength of light – there is no perfect mirror at all wavelengths.
This means that you can be clever and create surfaces that are passively cooled.
Optics is neat.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Any names? I am curious about which part of the Left-wing they come from. I am not as online or follow DSA types as much as you. TIA.
Barbara
The biopic of James Brown included scenes about his interactions with Little Richard early, as in very early, in his career. They were both in their own way a force of nature, and a triumph of human spirit. The film is entertaining and poignant.
One movie celebrating music traditions that I think would not get made today, or at least not in the same way, is Brother Where Art Thou — I recently watched it for the first time and I was kind of shocked at the extent of what I now see as whitewashing Jim Crow. It was made in the early 2000s. What a difference few decades can make.
Caroline
I am HERE for the Little Richard documentary! Whoooooh! Thanks for putting that right up top.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: The issue of a two term Governor does not seem to get very much traction among Virginia politicians or citizens. Democrats may believe that if they can just run better campaigns than Terry McAuliffe did in 2021, the office will pass from Democrat to Democrat.
I think there is a good chance it will after 2025. But we’ll know more about the political trend in Virginia after this fall’s legislative elections.
Kay
@sab:
We can’t protect from them auditioning for their next job, but I think that’s a lesser evil than having a huge cadre of far Right lifetime judges who have absolute contempt for every American who is not a far Right winger.
Did you see the nonsense the Rigt wing judge pulled in the abortion pill case? He thinks he can keep a hearing secret.
He was afraid if Americans found out what he was up to they might object and challenge him publicly. He’ll take care of that! Let’s have a secret star chamber hearing packed with exclsuively Right wingers!
Out. Of. Control. And they get worse every day.
Alison Rose
Our wonderful Veep was on Colbert’s show last night (link goes to their main YT page because there are three clips). Haven’t watched yet but I’m going to do so today.
Kay
@sab:
Also- they audition for their next job anyway. He’s auditioning for the SCOTUS by becoming a Right wing internet hero.
Kay
In fact, given how conventional and brittle and worshipful of the status quo our “institutions” are I’m amazed that any AA person managed to come up with and promote a theory for anything at all, let alone critical race theory.
I’m amazed the ass kissing, careerist douchebags who run law schools didn’t shut them up and shut them down when they were developing CRT. That Derrick Bell and critical race theory exist and people have heard of them is the amazing thing.
brantl
@Kay: Democrats need to yank voter ID right out of the knuckle-walkers’ hands; anywhere there’s this being raised, insist that it be absolutely free, that it can be applied for anywhere there’s a notary, and a go-to-the-person-and-free method for homeless/poor.
sab
@Kay: I just read this comment and your last to spouse and he agrees with you. We have been having this term limits battle for weeks. I think it is just an easy shortcut. You and him against me does give me pause.
Geminid
@Anyway: I do not remember particular names. I catch these people indirectly, through Twitter commenters like Michael Paulauski and Post Left Watch. Those two often argue against commentary from what Paulauski calls the “Dirtbag Left,” and are very critical of the Red/Brown alliance some leftists try to form with populist conservatives.
The pejorative use of “Woke” seems to come from the more cynical crowd I associate with Jimmy Dore, and not the DSA and DSA-adjacent. I think the DSA has problems, but those people tend to be idealistic and not cynical about politics. On the other hand, Dore is just cynical and nasty, and he hates liberals.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Take her out to lunch, my grandmother and I had a unique bond. In her eyes I could do no wrong. She shared some stories from her childhood, which she had never shared with any of her children. She was a hoot.
dww44
@Kay: I so agree with this and goes double for the Supremes.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
If they they are matching, they mean at the same rates. They probably have enough endowments to provide “scholarships” to bring it down to the same rate. We do this for certain students in contiguous states and VA and DC. Also similar to the VA (Veteran Affairs, not the state) Yellow Ribbon Program, for which participating schools bring tuition down for out-of-state students with VA benefits to in-state rates (or discounts private college tuition) with a mix of VA and institutional funding. We don’t need it because PA law requires public colleges to charge VA benefit recipients in-state tuition.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl:
My concern with term limits, especially something as short as ten years, is that I am not sure that it will not create more problems than it solves. Becoming a good judge takes some time. Even a good prospect has to learn on the job. IMO a ten year term limit would get rid of good judges in their prime. As Kay suggests, it would also limit the damage that bad judges can do. The question is what the balance between good and bad judges is. I tend to think that the very bad ones get a lot of publicity and that makes them seem more numerous than they actually are. Others may disagree.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks. Another good suggestion. This is her first plane trip. She was supposed to go on a trip to Colorado with her parents but she got COVID and couldn’t go, so my husband and I set up this trip so she can fly- with her mother, of course.
cmorenc
@Lapassionara:
After hearing any Little Richard tune, I always felt as if I had heard a minister preaching the pure joyful side of life God intended for us to have.
Kay
Woke already had a definition but anti woke does not, so here’s my suggestion.
Anti woke is when people fight to naturalize traditional hierarchies.
They want you to believe that everyone who is in power belongs there forever, naturally and inevitably, and anyone challenging that does NOT belong. It is about power.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agree completely. I am almost always against any term limits. It never works out the way you think it will or want it to.
Redshift
@WaterGirl:
Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It has more to do with the legislature not giving up power voluntarily than with partisanship. But who knows, with some of the dinosaurs retiring this year, anything’s possible.
frosty
@Kay: TPM is the first blog I started to read, even before Kos. I send Josh money every year.
brantl
@Baud: By definition, cooler, it reflects all light, equally.
Soprano2
@Kay: They want us to be like England used to be, where people born into the “gentry” were seen as naturally suited to rule and be over everyone else, and no one was supposed to question that. They think conservatives should naturally rule everything, and no one should question that. I keep hearing conservatives saying we’re trying to “shove our beliefs down their throat”. No, no, no, that’s what they’re doing – trying to make their beliefs into laws that all of us have to follow. I’m completely comfortable with them going to the church of their choice, restricting the books and movies their children see, never having an abortion or using birth control, and trying to make sure their kids are never around a gay or trans or non-binary people (this is impossible, but it’s what they want). My objection is that they’re trying to make all of us live that way!! They want to make the whole world safe for them and their kids, so that they never encounter anything they don’t like. It’s impossible.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Thanks for the response. Don’t know who Jimmy Dore is…not familiar with him at all.
dww44
@geg6: While I concede that term limits have their own weaknesses, I do think that their benefits outweigh them. Maybe 18 years maximum for federal judges. I see no other way to weaken the extreme partisanship that lifetime appointments has created for our democracy. We need to reinvent and rethink some of the supposed pillars of our government.
StringOnAStick
@Benw: Seems like mirrored space suits risks blinding your fellow astronauts with the Sun’s reflection, or the various video and still cameras.
Paul in KY
@Kay: They are just throwing ‘shit’ against the wall and seeing if anything sticks.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree with you. Term limits are a very blunt instrument, and I’m not sure they do more harm than good. Surely there has to be another way to stop bad judges and bad politicians.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: I never posted on twitter, but my feed led to do much doom scrolling that I didn’t realize how negatively it was affecting my mental health until I quit using it. I’ll sometimes click on links here and read a little, but I refuse to open the app and give that malevolent fucker my eyeballs.
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY:
Everywhere. Always. In all things.
Amir Khalid
@Anyway:
Are you familiar with Cenk Uygur’s The Young Turks and its stable of professional Bernista leftists? That’s where I came across Jimmy Dore.
Redshift
@Kay:
That’s good for polite discussion (though I’d say that’s a definition of conservatism generally, rather than this term specifically.)
For a more pejorative version (when that’s needed), I’d say:
Being anti-woke means you’re against recognizing or addressing injustices, past or present.
NotMax
@StringOnAStick
Dearth of discos on the Moon.
;)
schrodingers_cat
@tam1MI: Hampshire college is teetering on the edge of closure. I know a few alumni and they loved their experience there. But it is struggling to maintain enrollment. So this could help them too
They have a lot of competition in the vicinity, 3 private schools and the behemoth of UMASS.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Anti-woke = Ignorant bigot.
Too harsh?
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep. My mother and her grandchildren (my niece and nephew) have a special relationship. They are their own little group.
ETA: Did you ever post your review of RRR?
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I posted some comments yesterday, didn’t get much of a response. I am writing up a longer review and am not yet done. Have you watched it?
Redshift
@Redshift: Relating to my earlier comment, I think it’s a waste of time trying to argue that wingnuts are using words wrong, but I’m big on demonizing their words, and pointing out that every one of them (anti-woke, politically incorrect, etc.) means “I’m proud of being an asshole and no one should be allowed to stop me.”
Barbara
@Soprano2: In a very real sense, they are trying to make all of us live that way because they have failed in trying to ensure that their children live that way. I am convinced that to an accelerating degree, a lot of conservative backlash relates to feelings of loss, grief and fear over their own children — moving away, less likely to go to church, don’t care about teh gays, might even be one of them, not getting married or starting a family on schedule, and so on.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
People whose attitude for a long time has been that minority issues should be ignored and only class war matters. People whose status as allies is somewhere between ‘tenuous’ and ‘ratfuckers’.
@Redshift:
I’m starting to think that conservatives are much more woke than most liberals. They spot anything that addresses systemic bigotry instantly. They just like systemic bigotry and their reaction is to try to destroy even such minor displays of ‘woke’ as letting marginalized groups be mentioned in public.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: My baby sis went there. Botany linguistics double major. Not many colleges where that was an option
ETA And on the other hand my college in Ohio is now the highest priced college in the nation, which it certainly was not in my days there.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: I have seen this dynamic in the Indian political scene as well. Privileged demographic prefers speaking about class rather than social equity issues like race (caste) and gender because it is easier to point fingers rather than do any self reflection.
Redshift
@Soprano2:
Yeah, I can’t remember where I read it, but an eye-opener for me was the description that conservatism (everywhere, not just here) is the belief that there’s a natural aristocracy who should rule, combined with trying to manipulate democratic systems to make that happen.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Glad she went out on her own terms! Glad you had a great relationship with her, Kay!
NotMax
Been troubling for quite some time how RWNJ terminology such as “woke” gets picked up and accepted as natural discourse across the spectrum. Like it or not, acceptance conveys legitimacy.
If any of you ever see me using an unadorned woke in any but a point-and-laugh sense (or if otherwise without quote marks surrounding it), please, please slap me down. Hard.
It’s their term of choice; let ’em choke on it.
Geminid
@Anyway: I’d say you are lucky not to know who Jimmy Dore is. He’s a comedian turned left wing agitator, with a fairly large audience. Dore was one of the featured speakers at last month’s “Rage against the War Machine” rally in D.C. The rally was sponsored by the gritfty “People’s Party” and the”Mises Caucus” of the Libertarian Party. It drew only a small crowd, but it was a good example of the Red/Brown alliance that has sprung up over Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Dore was an instigator of the “Force the Vote” campaign in late 2020. He wanted progressive Democratic Representatives to withhold their votes for Speaker in order to extract the promise that House Democrats would hold a floor vote on Medicare for All.
Like several others on the “Dirtbag Left,” Dore’s shows are propagated by “Call In,” a media platform sponsored by conservative tech investor David Sacks.
Paul in KY
@Baud: If it was reflecting something really hot, like the sun, the part where the sun is reflected would be hotter than a white surface (IMO).
Tony Jay
@Soprano2:
Used to be?
I’m afraid your optimism, while delightful, does not fully mesh with the current state of affairs on the Island That Shot Itself In The Junk Then Dug Out The Bullet So It Could Aim Higher.
Conservatives run everything over here. Every political party. every major institution, every media organisation. I’m afraid the possibility of progressive politics getting a look-in so terrified the Establishment that the only alternative anyone’s allowed to hear about these days is the Very Far Right, which is just so delightful I can’t even begin to put in words the feelings it evokes.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@NotMax: I’ve encountered the term “woke” used unironically and unmaliciously in two places. The show “Dear White People” and the song “Redbone.”
I like these productions and as a rule I want to fight against misappropriation of words, so I’m with the people who want to continue to claim this word.
Princess
The thing about New College in Florida which makes it unlike all the private and expensive Hampshire Colleges out there is that for in-state students it was relatively cheap. That’s why they want to destroy it. They don’t care that much about people who can afford it going to small liberal in both senses of the word colleges. They don’t want liberal education to be available to the poors. They don’t want them to get ideas above their station. So Hampshire’s offer may help a few students, but it is no longer term fix.
Kay
Doug Ponder
@dougponder
·Mar 14
A friend of mine, who works in a public university, sent this to me earlier this week It’s p. 1 of the DEI training his department is forced to take, starting w/ an exercise that asks which intersectional identities you’d save and which you’d leave to die. This is demonic.
This particular anti woke moron has never seen the dumb excercise where you decide which people go in your lifeboat before. I personally always kill the priest and the senator.
Are they this dumb and cloistered because none of them have ever had normal jobs?
Baud
@Kay:
Jackals only lifeboat for me.
Frankensteinbeck
@Tony Jay:
How deep is the ‘social class makes you inherently better’ consciousness in England these days? I was fond of a mid-20th century British author whose near-obsession was the fucked-upedness of class barriers. That’s a long, long time ago, though.
Baud
@Geminid:
I said I quit people too easily, but, really, that’s all I need to know about this asshat.
Paul in KY
@StringOnAStick: Good point!
StringOnAStick
@Tony Jay: The transformation of your country thanks to being awash in Russian money is terrifying.
Kay
@Baud:
We did it in a CLE and this lawyer that I like (although, frankly, she’s nuts- her father, also a lawyer, was also nuts) chose the priest and everyone attacked her. So of course I had to join her when it came to be my turn. “Out”. I have no regrets.
Old School
@Kay:
(Nominated!)
This doesn’t seem to be the same exercise. There isn’t a senator listed, but there is a Hispanic clergyman.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I posted some comments yesterday, didn’t get much of a response. I am writing up a longer review and am not yet done. Have you watched it?
Have not seen it yet. Also, I don’t have Netflix, so have to jump through a few hoops to get the movie. But I am curious about it because it has sparked some interest here. I really enjoyed the musical number from the movie at the Oscars.
Kay
Anti choicers already have a radio ad up in Ohio claiming that a law protecting womens agency and right to modern medical care is actually a law to allow sex changes by minors, so using the trans panic to promote laws limiting womens rights.
It would be interesting to ask some of the “TERFS” about this. Are they joining with the Right on this too?
Right wingers tried this same tactic in Michigan and it failed. Amusing they’re rolling it out agan.
Baud
@Kay:
Suddenly they don’t seem so confident about spreading God’s word about the evils of abortion.
Tony Jay
@Frankensteinbeck:
There was a time, mid to late 90s in particular, when I distinctly recall the zeitgeist turning against the Old Ways. Working Class accents were in vogue, posh people, their plummy tones and the way they lived their twee little lives were viewed pretty much as something musty and old-fashioned and had almost zero cultural cachet. Four Weddings and a Funeral came slam-bang in the heart of that era, but it took Hugh Grant’s considerable charm to make his feckless posho character work, and recall he had to have a commoner as his best friend (and Simon Callow had to have a boyfriend from North of the Border) to make the fact that he was an aimlessly upper-class berk from the Spiffing Set palatable to an audience that really didn’t see themselves as inhabiting the same planet as those people.
Then Diana died. The Royal Family utterly screwed the pooch with their response. Anger, genuine anger, and a ton of contempt came bubbling up for the representatives of a social order that seemed to many to have had its day and needed to go away.
Enter the PR machine.
I’m pretty certain that in a few decades, if we survive that long, a lot of academic studies are going to be written about how the Monarchy, the Media and the Men In Grey Suits made a devil’s bargain to rescue the reputation of the Royal Family from its late 90s downpoint by rebranding the Windsors as the ultimate soap-opera, with a side-order of making ‘being posh’ cool and aspirational rather than a sign of being privileged and out-of-touch.
Fast forward twenty plus years and we’re living with the backwash of that highly successful (and continuing) PR operation. It gave us a world where David ‘Call Me Dave’ Cameron and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson could masquerade as ‘men of the people’, while the actual victims of their greed are pilloried on shows like ‘Benefits Street’.
They may have shit the bed so thoroughly that fewer people would actually vote for a drawling Etonian this time around, but given that the actual material fabric of our society is as unfair and unequal as it was this time a century ago, that’s not much of a pushback.
Another Scott
@Old School:
As always, beware things taken out of context.
I only count 4 of the group as being explicitly gendered as female. 3 explicitly gendered as male. But maybe part of the exercise is to get people to think about their gender biases…
I don’t know if it’s the same, but New York State seems to have a lot of training like this.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony Jay
@StringOnAStick:
Yup. But on the bright side, they stopped the scruffy old Trot who talked about cutting off the flow of oligarch cash from getting into power, so, uh, yeah, totally did the country a solid there.
Oh, hang on.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
So would I. There’s a strong thread in that movement of limited interest in reproductive rights. Their answers would be illuminating. My guess is that it has too little to do with men being evil rapists, and too much to do with women willingly having sex with men.
Paul in KY
@Barbara: That and also too a “Well I can’t do that, so I want it so no one else can do any of those sinful, fun things I sooo wish I could do!”
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: How about that Erling onslaught the other night? Think he could have had 8, but their goalie made some fine saves. Agree with Pep taking him out, as if he’d gotten an injury in garbage time, that could scupper the season.
Paul in KY
@Kay: That exercise sounds fun! I’ve never taken that one.
Tony Jay
@Paul in KY:
He’s a monster. Granted he’ll now go five games without a goal because none of the Lilliputians surrounding him with pass to him in the Premier League, but in the Champions League, against German opposition, the boy earns his salt.
NotMax
@Paul in KY
Until one night
I saw the light
And heard salvation’s call
I’m so glad I didn’t hear it
Until I’d done it all
– “On the Twentieth Century”
:)
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: We need him (and Kevin and rest of team) to be wired down if/when we play Real, as the Championship goes thru them (as much as I hate to admit it, as I hate Real Madrid the soccer team. Really like a few of their players & glad that cheapshotting thug Ramos is no longer on their roster).
Dan B
@Soprano2: The right wing abhors empathy because they believe the world is dog eat dog aand any tiny bit of empathy makes you weak and all the dogs will eat you. It has been discovered that wolf packs do not behave this way. Science viewed through the lens of hierarchy came to the preordained conclusion because of course it would. Start with flawed ideology, end with flawed conclusions. I’m glad I don’t live in such a cruel world view.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Redshift: We see it in the U.S. in families who get into politics and then the children, who have benefited from their parents political connections and in some cases wealth, go into politics and then the grandchildren. See: the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Cheneys, the Romneys. the Huckabees.
Dan B
@Baud: White reflects more than almost all mirrors. I believe there is a mirror that reflects almost all light but i don’t believe it’s adaptable to any flexible material.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dan B:
They don’t work that way in their family dynamics. This is how pack animals hunt. Surround the prey, retreat when it attacks, whoever sees a defenseless opening does the attacking. You can see it vividly in human hostility dynamics.
satby
@Dan B: this!
Soprano2
@Barbara: OH ITA!! That’s what’s driving the majority of it.
Gravenstone
@Old School: Briefly perusing the offered link, all I can say is wingnuts of a feather whine together.