Despite much hoopla, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his statehouse minions’ moves against the Disney corporation have mostly been a ritualized display of aggression, IMO. He did violate the company’s First Amendment rights by using state power to punish speech he didn’t like, but it’s not like Big Mouse can easily haul up stakes and tell Florida to go fuck itself.
But while DeSantis has crowed endlessly about his victory over Woke Disney, the punishment was mostly symbolic because Big Mouse has the state of Florida’s balls in a vise just as firmly as Florida has Mickey’s family jewels in a panini press. The legislature’s first move to strip WDW of its self-governing status would have stuck Florida taxpayers with a billion-plus bond debt, so that was hastily walked back.
What they settled on was appointing DeSantis cronies to the board that manages WDW’s development and government services. At the time, DeSantis and the religious fanatics and corrupt Repub operatives appointed to the board hinted that they’d have say-so over content development rather than sewers, fire services, building height codes, etc., but I’m pretty sure that was always a lie.
Now it looks like the Disney board that was deposed to make way for the DeSantis-aligned kooks mouse-fucked DeSantis but good on the way out by stripping said kooks of even their relatively petty power to give WDW headaches. From The Tampa Bay Times:
LAKE BUENA VISTA — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked board overseeing Disney World’s government services is gearing up for a potential legal battle over a 30-year development agreement they say effectively renders them powerless to manage the entertainment giant’s future growth in Central Florida.
Ahead of an expected state takeover, the Walt Disney Co. quietly pushed through the pact and restrictive covenants that would tie the hands of future board members for decades, according to a legal presentation by the district’s lawyers Wednesday.
Hilarious! This provision in the document is even funnier (Orlando Sentinel):
“[T]his Declaration shall continue in effect until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England living as of the date of this Declaration,” the document said.
The reference to the King of England read as a giant “fuck you” to me, so I was extra delighted. But disappointingly, The Sentinel consulted with Cornell Law School and found that such covenants are often tied to a living person for whatever reason and that it’s not uncommon for the British royal family to get dragged into American legal documents because “given their wealth, they tended to live longer than most and their family trees were relatively easy to map.”
Still, score one for the Mouse!
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s new Board of Supervisors voted to bring in outside legal firepower to examine the agreement, including a conservative Washington, D.C., law firm that has defended several of DeSantis’ culture war priorities.
“We’re going to have to deal with it and correct it,” board member Brian Aungst Jr. said. “It’s a subversion of the will of the voters and the Legislature and the governor. It completely circumvents the authority of this board to govern…”
“This essentially makes Disney the government,” board member Ron Peri said. “This board loses, for practical purposes, the majority of its ability to do anything beyond maintain the roads and maintain basic infrastructure.”
Cry harder, fascist boot-licking goons!
Naturally DeSantis is using this occasion to shovel even more Florida taxpayer money at out-of-state law firms that employ his cronies, so that sucks. But I see this corrupt bargain cited more often in local daily coverage, which is a good thing. And it’s always wonderful to see DeSantis-aligned henchmen sputtering about their powerlessness in the media.
As DeSantis is obnoxiously fond of saying, “scoreboard.” Right now, it reads Mickey 1 – DeSantis 0.
Tom Levenson
The Mouse does not play.
Karen S.
That Pudd N Boots seemed to have no idea this was coming makes it even funnier. I read in a previous that Trump and his minions are already making hay out of this. LOL
different-church-lady
The thing I I don’t understand is what DeSantis thinks he’s going to gain by going to war with the country’s most beloved family media corporation.
lowtechcyclist
So no problem with the Rule Against Perpetuities. 21 years after the death of the last survivor of this well-documented group of people now living, the Declaration will finally cease to be in effect. Depending on the ages of King Chuck’s grandchildren and possibly great-grandkids (I’ve paid zero attention to what’s going on in the British royal family, aside from QEII’s passing), that could be 120 years from now, if global warming hasn’t brought Western civilization to an end.
ETA:
As our high school chant used to go, “watermelon, watermelon, watermelon rind, look at the scoreboard, and see who’s behind.”
Mouse 1
Boots 0
Kristine
@different-church-lady:
Aren’t they also one of the state’s largest employers? Then there’s the tourist $$ they draw
That said, I think DeSantis and Crew would like to put a stop to what they consider woke programming. Brown mermaids and such.
Old School
So all DeSantis has to do is kill King Charles, his children, and his grandchildren?
lowtechcyclist
@Kristine:
I don’t know what percentage of Florida’s budget is funded by tourism-related taxes and fees, but I’m sure it’s not a small chunk.
scav
It’s early in the morning, I somehow just had the vision of the quest to find and control the One Complaining Whiner in Florida that will soon rule them all (starting with Educational & Entertaining content).
Kristine
@lowtechcyclist:
Bet it’s the main reason they don’t have a state income tax.
Shalimar
@lowtechcyclist: I was told I could ignore the RAP rule question and still pass the bar exam.
scav
@Kristine: Cinderella! What is that except programmatic indoctrination inciting child labor to quit their jobs and attempt to marry above their station!
patrick II
Disney learned this trick from watching majority Republican state legislatures that change the rules when a Democrat wins the Governorship.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I always find it vaguely amusing when British law gets dragged into our courts. Except for (IIRC) the Supreme Court using some 14th-century British law to justify throwing out Roe v Wade.
When I was living in MD, I remember a perpetual water fight between VA and MD where the relevant law was some decree by a 17th century English king.
I am at the moment sipping coffee and recovering after an all-morning scare about what looked like a virus compromising every single password stored in my iCloud keychain. Apple tells me I’m now safe but I’m still shaking.
Also, “I’ve never seen a virus on an iPhone in all my years. It’s malware.” Um, OK. That’s like the Verizon person who was offended at my use of the word “bricked”. “It’s not a brick, it’s just permanently unusable.”
E.
When I was in law school there were these cliques of weird right-winger Christians who always had the most bizarre and inexplicable approach to things like law school, law exams, and the law in general. They would come up with the most absurd, Rube-Goldberg analyses to simple problems and I would think, assuming these imbeciles find a way to pass the bar, how in the world are they ever going to survive in the legal profession?
And now here they are, sitting in their Governors’ mansions, lawyering to the president, adjudicating cases in the Supreme Court, getting on TV at the Four Seasons (Landscaping), and carefully steering the ship of state into the iceberg field. Who’s laughing now libtard groomer?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Old School: Hmm. I’m picturing a very interesting montage of assassination attempts featuring MAGAs (possibly with live alligators over their shoulders to indicate Florida Man status) and bodyguards dressed as Disney characters.
Shalimar
@different-church-lady: In this instance, Disney used their personal tax fiefdom to maintain higher standards than anywhere else in Florida, rather than race to the libertarian bottom to feed developer greed. They’re the antithesis of Republican philosophy.
Uncle Cosmo
WDW should consider teaming up with SeaWorld and slipping Ron DeStains aka Strained Son (anagrams!) aka Pudd ‘n Lifts a Mickey Fin….
The Moar You Know
I’m sure that Disney had plans for exactly this sort of contingency for decades. Walter and Roy were both pretty paranoid, so I’m sure they had a plan from the start of the WDW project.
It’s not like Disney are just some hacks running the typical shithole amusement park that you so often find in Florida. This is the global company that tells Congress how to rewrite copyright law exclusively for their benefit every twenty years or so. That Disney.
I’m sure Disney appreciates the billion a year in debt expenses the great state of Florida just took on for them, though.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: I often wonder if DeSantis has screwed himself by focusing so hard on wresting the base away from Trump that he’s alienated the normies and independents he’ll need to win a general election, should he nab the GOP nomination. It’s easy to think degenerate, hateful Fox-addled weirdos who freak out about seeing gay people on TV commercials are the majority if you live in Florida.
Suzanne
Die mad about it, fuckers.
You know, those of us who are old-school liberals warned for a long time that putting a lot of power in the hands of private companies would lead to outcomes that wouldn’t be favorable to some. That conservatives wouldn’t like the outcomes if (and when!) their positions lost popularity. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened. You don’t want to lose your job because you aren’t in alignment with your company’s views on DEI? Well, maybe you shouldn’t have put so much faith and power over your life in the hands of private enterprise, maybe you should have supported unions over companies. You pissed because Amazon won’t sell your shitty conservative book or your big publisher dropped you? Maybe you should have taken a stronger stand against corporate consolidations. Because all those actions are just private companies making their own freedom-of-speech and freedom-of-association decisions. And if you’re only pissed about it when you find that you’re on the losing end of it, then you aren’t an ally and I’m not going to fight on your behalf.
Disney is a private company. Why any so-called conservative would think that public government has any role in their content is genuinely beyond me.
Oh, because conservatives are utterly full of shit. It’s pure will-to-power, as it always is.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@lowtechcyclist:
Here’s the important bit on that textbook, perfectly executed RAP clause – the asshole Florida courts can’t blow it up over that without blowing up thousands of big money trusts in Florida that govern a lot of family holdings there – trusts which have been in existence since the early 1900s (same thing applies to the Sassy Boot lickspittles in the Lege). This would also leak over into creating confusion on the deeds attached to these trusts.
Which trusts, you ask?
Little tiny concerns like sugarcane fields and orange groves, for starters.
Shalimar
@E.: I took Ethics with a whole group of these assholes. They saw every ethics problem as a search for loopholes to avoid punishment for all the horrible things they wanted to do.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Suzanne:
I imagine that they had dreams of demanding a reissuance of Song of the South as a condition for approval of an expansion of any area of the park.
Betty Cracker
WDW employs about 70K people in Florida and are a major reason we can lure enough tourists to not have a state income tax. We can’t quit each other, but I do hope WDW has had an epiphany about Repubs and begins working behind the scenes to fuck them as they’ve done to Dems for 50 years.
TaMara
I have a friend who worked for Disney in LA for years – he always said, don’t fuck with the mouse.
I knew DeSantis was toast the moment he started this fight.
Geminid
@different-church-lady: DeSantis’s horizon seems to be next year’s Republican convention, so he’s trying to win over the Republican base, irrespective of the broader popularity of the Disney brand.
In Virginia, we put up with similar crap from our Governor. Youngkin also crafts policy with an eye towards the national Republican primary electorate, next year’s or 2028’s. Fortunately, Senator Lucas’s “Brick Wall” in the state Senate limits the damage.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: This has been exactly my case. Given a Trump-less election, which is not going to be the case, ThreeFingers would win the GOP primary without lifting a finger, and then get absolutely slaughtered in the general. He looks to a normal person like a skin suit with a reptile inside trying to desperately get some fresh air.
ETA: reminds me of Huey Long in a way: owns his state, will never get traction outside it.
sab
So deSantis completely wasted that Harvard Law School education by not learning anything while he was there?
Suzanne
I will also note that maintaining roads and infrastructure is the appropriate role of government in this case.
Disney is indeed the “government” of their own affairs and content creation, you fucking squirrel scrotum.
Bugboy
ROTFLMFAO! Now do medical marijuana!
Matt McIrvin
Yeah, the weird King Charles thing got all the attention but this is apparently common legal boilerplate to work around the ‘rule against perpetuities’ in deeds and such. Sometimes they use the Kennedys instead–some family famous enough that it’s unlikely to become hard to tell if they’re alive.
Pharniel
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: The current Big Brains in FL are thinking of just nuking covenants all together, and oh Murphy the Trickster would never be so kind to us as to do that. Given how much TFG & all the other oligarchs have stashed away in assets that run off those covenants, it would be glorious to watch it all burn down.That all said:
“Disney as the government” A/K/A a Company Town was the entire point of the Reedy Creek Development District, so it’s funny watching these guys complain about the OG law doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
As upthread said:
GOP: Corporations really should be running things.
Disney: OK, sure, thanks. Welcome to our Corporate Pride Rainbow Marketing Event(tm)
GOP: NOT LIKE THAT!
Matt McIrvin
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Close. They tried stopping the Splash Mountain re-theme from “Song of the South” to “The Princess and the Frog” with a historic landmark designation. So far Disney has just ignored them.
Suzanne
@Bugboy: I should also note that if The People disapprove of Disney’s content, they’re more than within their rights to stop consuming it. The voters can vote with their dollars, in this case.
Christian conservatives are not good at feeling unpopular.
kindness
I feel for you Betty. Many of the people I grew up with in the northeast moved to Florida. They left me thinking the state was more or less moderate even if it styled itself as a legal haven for scammers elsewhere in the nation. Now though…not so much. Democrats in Florida seem to be significantly outnumbered, or have no issues sitting on their hands while their Rome is burning, or both. I just don’t understand the state any more. I feel for you.
Pharniel
@Suzanne:
Oh, they’re great at feeling unpopular. They’ve got that whole Persecution Fetish thing down pat.
They just can’t handle being actually unpopular and reigned in, let alone legitimately persecuted.
NotoriousJRT
@patrick II: that was my thought, exactly.
Suzanne
@Pharniel: Also….
GOP: Private companies should be able to hire and fire whomever they want!
Private company: Okay! :::fires bigot dude who offends his coworkers:::
GOP: NOT LIKE THAT!!!
Alison Rose
@Pharniel: Yep. Oppress me harder, Daddy!
Matt McIrvin
@Pharniel: They’ve got to be the Silent Majority of decent normal people, and a persecuted remnant, at the same time.
Sister Golden Bear
You don’t tug on superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don’t fuck around with the Mouse
Barbara
@Suzanne: It is safe to say that most aggressive culture warriors did not contemplate a situation that put them on the outside looking in — they wanted to right to refuse to do business with or for gay people and now they mostly have it — but it never occurred to them that someone would refuse to serve them because of their stances.
I think most politicians grasp the fact that they can only outwork demographic change by — essentially — cheating. But the hoi polloi, the followers in the ranks seem to be shocked when they realize just how many people don’t share their views.
Disney is trying to cultivate tomorrow’s customers. This is an inexorable shift. The only real question is how much damage DeSantis and company are going to inflict until they can’t cheat their way around it.
Jeffro
Awesome! My motto for the next two year (minimum) =)
a
@kindness:
Generally speaking, I am a person who enjoyed wild and woolly, whackadoodle Gator Man scammy Florida.
The current candy-ass Talibornagain dictator Florida, not so much.
Jeffg166
I suspected the mouse was planning something. Sneaky little varmint..
Suzanne
@Barbara:
Not only that! They never contemplated a future in which companies did not want to produce content or products with their desires in mind. They also didn’t conceive of a future in which companies need to compete for skilled talent, and that that talent would not want to support conservative values.
But the fact that they didn’t contemplate this future indicates that they are fucken dumb. Anyone with more than an IQ over 100 should have seen this coming.
Barbara
@Pharniel: Well, yes, they have the persecution fetish down pat but they also claim that they are the voice of the ordinary, normal, as in majority, views on family and so on. They aren’t exactly looking inward to explain the inconsistency.
There is an emerging academic trend among Catholic legal scholars whose position is, basically, that in order to protect “mainstream” views, society will need to impose religion on the rest of us. Of course, if the views were mainstream they would not need to be coerced — but the point is, it’s important for these people to feel that they are mainstream even if they have to coerce the rest of us into paying lip service to their “moral authority.”
Increasingly, it’s just harder and harder for them to get that lip service by jawboning and threatening to tell their flock to vote a certain way.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Should be a rotating tag.
Jeffro
That would be a ‘yes’
PLUS, he’s alienating the “only trump” people – how dare he try to usurp the Mango Menace?
sdhays
I just have to laugh at this – the whole point of this development district was to make Disney the government. No “essentially” about it.
Idiots.
scav
They also don’t quite mind oppressing religiously-based freedoms if they don’t agree with their own takes on things. What about the freedom of branches of christianity et al that have not a single problem with officially sanctifying same sex marriages? Oh, stomp on that right, same as Judaism actually favoring abortion to save the life of the mother. Can’t let those moral actions be freely expressed, oh no. Once again, grumpiest and meanest opinions must be given the full force of law.
West of the Rockies
Hopefully DePinhead will go the way of so many before him, vexing and noisy men with delusions of grandeur, who end up as occasional commenters on fourth-rate networks: Walker, Santorum, Cantor, Ryan, etc.
dmsilev
Beyond the hilarious mental image of Florida deploying a “kill all the Royals” assassination squad, what I find most amusing is that it took deSantis’s crack team (or possibly on-crack team) of commissars two or three months to realize that they were just figureheads. Which tells you just how hard they’ve been working at their “jobs” since taking over.
Amusing item #3 is Trump crowing about how he, master dealmaker, would never had signed such a bad deal as this one. <LetThemFight.png>
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Barbara:
A friend of mine went through a phase when he was SSPX/Opus Dei curious, and said that to him, Liberty meant the freedom to order society to fit the majoritarian position of what he thought to be his views, and that most specifically meant mores on sexual life and relationships.
He’s since moved back into a less severe set of sociopolitical views.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Moar You Know:
That used to do that! VERY fun fact, the copyright laws stopped being updated. Every year new stuff is going public domain. The original version of Pooh is now public domain, although the Disney isn’t yet. I think Steamboat Willie is next year? And there’s no sign of even a push to extend the copyright again.
Matt McIrvin
Back in Nixon’s day, Pat Buchanan described the Southern Strategy as dividing the nation in two and ending up with the bigger half.
It’s the same playbook today but now it gets them the smaller half. And they can’t deal. They can often still win, through anti-democratic structures or because our side just didn’t turn out. Or, sometimes, by pretending to be moderate (Youngkin). But making that stick long-term requires the mailed fist, and Americans don’t put up with that forever.
TaMara
@Jeffro: I second this as a rotating tag.
calling Watergirl!
Quinerly
This sucks. Q Anon Shaman being released early.
https://www.azfamily.com/2023/03/30/report-qanon-shaman-released-early-prison-moved-halfway-house-phoenix-area/
Suzanne
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
I mean, I also enjoy making up words.
Baud
FWIW, I have no problem imposimg my liberal views on freedom on everyone. We’d be a stronger, happier, and more moral country if we could get to that point.
JAFD
@Matt McIrvin:
Waybackwhen, before WW I, ’twas common for lawyers to ‘paste in’ “descendants of Queen Victoria now living”, confident that one could check DeBrett’s and the Almanach de Gotha to find when the last ceased to be a ‘life in being’ and the 21 years until the trust’s windup began.
But the end of the German monarchy and nobility, and the ‘unfortunate events’ in Russia made such research significantly more difficult ….
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: Disney knows the politics of that shifted against them. They’ve pivoted to using old stuff like 1928 Mickey in merch and logos and such, so they can defend commercial use of him as a trademark, since copyright will no longer fly.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Frankensteinbeck:
Lets face it – nobody gives a crap about Steamboat Willie anymore. The copyright outlived its usefulness.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I think your words are perfectly cromulent.
Baud
I for one am thrilled that the rule against perpetuities is finally getting its moment in the spotlight. I wonder if it’s trending on social media.
Kristine
@Suzanne:
When Dems are in power, that’s the only gov’t conservatives want (if even that much). Anything else is overreach.
I still can’t get over how much conservatives want to do/actually do the very thing they accuse liberal of wanting to do, namely ram their beliefs down everybody’s throats.
Jeffro
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: dang it!
(throws sixth draft of Steamboat Willie: The Musical! into the trash)
Geminid
@Baud: “RAP is da Bomb!!”
Kay
@Quinerly:
So funny. He’s out early because of the First Step Act– the law passed during the 15 minute period when Republicans were interested in criminal justice reform.
They all have to lie now and say none of them supported it because of the media’s crime panic – it’s considered a liability for Trump.
Bugboy
I saw that, and was like how did Disney miss the boat on that one? Totally ruined my response to folks complaining about the evils of Monsanto: that they are using a playbook written by Disney!
cmorenc
This provision is designed to prevent the covenant from being voided by the ancient principle of real property law “the rule against perpetuities” – which rule is designed to limit a contemporary owner of the property from unliterally creating permanent restrictions on control, ownership, or use of real property. Classic version of the rule is “life in being + 21 years” – meaning the duration must be based on some specified person currently living as of the creation of the restriction. Various states have modified the particulars of the rule against perpetuities – e.g. number of years following death of person used as criteria, but the nature of the rule is the same, despite modern variations. By “unilateral” – I meant to distinguish the ability of the legislatures to authorize creation of certain perpetual restrictions, e.g. conservation easements, that serve a public purpose.
Kay
@Quinerly:
I don’t care that much that he’s out early. I think US prison sentences are way, way too long. Criminal justice reform is a good idea even if it’s no longer fashionable. Crime panics suck and throwing billions more at police isn’t going to solve anything.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Kristine:
It’s projection as usual. They believe it of Democrats because it’s what they themselves do.
Geminid
@Kay: Mike Pompeo is trying out the increase in the national debt under Trump as another line of attack. He’s working out this and other messaging in front of smaller groups for now.
Central Planning
@Sister Golden Bear: And: Never get involved in a land war in Asia!
Almost Retired
@lowtechcyclist: My property law professor noted that at most, we’re likely to only encounter the obscure rule against perpetuities once in our career. And lo, these 35 years later, it comes up in a matter involving Mickey Mouse and the King of England.
Snarki, child of Loki
the hilarious mental image of Florida deploying a “kill all the Royals” assassination squad
I, for one, look forward to 007 eliminating the Desantis/MAGAt threat to the Royal family.
It would make a good movie, also, too.
Almost Retired
@TaMara: Law school buddy of mine worked for awhile in Disney’s “Government Relations” department. This was basically a crack team of lawyers and lobbyists whose job was to push around counties named Orange. You fuck with this company at your own peril.
Suzanne
@Kristine:
The more intellectually honest (but equally ethically bankrupt) of them are now pushing integralism. Thus acknowledging that the American government structure and Constitution created by the founders has no role for the church in government.
Delk
The royal family is frantically trying to figure out how to off Harry and make it look like a desantis hack did it. lol
mrmoshpotato
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Hail the pitch clock!
Fie on the shift!
Cameron
And just to put the covfefe on my hamberder, a friend of mine in South Carolina told me this morning that the NAACP has made the ‘don’t come to Florida’ travel advisory official. Let the good times roll.
Barbara
@Almost Retired: This made me laugh. One thing Google maps is really good for is to figure out how common a place name is. There are five counties named “Orange” in the U.S. — VA, NC and NY, which are not Disney related, in addition to the Disney Metropoli of FL and CA.
The non-Disney Oranges were probably named in association with the royal house of Orange or someone who was from there (like William of Orange). Whereas, I assume FL and CA names reflect the business of growing oranges.
Kristine
@Suzanne: That’s welcome, though I wonder how much traction it will get given the party base. That said, I can see them using it as an anti-Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/ etc/ gov’t has no role in helping people since giving a damn is the role of religion.
Mai Naem mobile
@Delk: considering that Camilla’s has family members who have Russian oligarch ties, they shouldn’t have any problems finding many methods of offing Harry.
Barbara
@Kay: Right, unless he was the beneficiary of favoritism denied to others in a similar circumstance. I don’t agree with personalizing penal policy.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: The NYT has an article today about Trump and DeSantis going at each other on crime. As you know, Trump is portraying FL cities as a crime-ridden hellholes, which is fair by the wingnut standard of screaming about New York! Chicago!
DeSantis and crew have a whisper campaign about the First Step Act, which is complicated by the fact that DeSantis voted for an early version of it before he resigned from the House to run for governor.
I love to see these two horrible people punching each other in the face and hope the upcoming GOP primary is the most protracted and bitter in the party’s history.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: We’ll see. My initial thought is “Fuck the pitch clock!”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Barbara: In New Jersey there are also the towns of “The Oranges” (I call them that, I don’t know if Jerseyites do). South Orange and East Orange, possibly a North and a West as well.
I was always mildly curious about why they used that name, but not enough to research it.
Also my alma mater has an orange as its sports mascot. Or possibly the color orange. Again, never bothered to research why.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
DeSatin thinks?
Well I’ll be damned. I thought he was strictly a reactionary, not an own thought in that swelled head.
Doc Sardonic
@Kristine: Nope, the reason Florida does not and will not have a state income tax is that the levy of an income tax is prohibited in the state constitution.
scav
@Ruckus: DeSantis sinks with a lisp?
Barbara
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The Dutch royal house of Orange, which, in addition to being a Dutch name, also became English when William of Orange became King of England. I guess either might be an explanation for the New Jersey names.
It also explains why Dutch athletes where orange uniforms even though their flag colors are red, white and blue.
Gravenstone
@different-church-lady: Part of it is the current hate boner on the right against Disney because of being “woke”. Conservatives absolutely HATE that Disney properties elevate women and minorities in film and television properties. Hell, they’re probably pissed at the disappearing of Song of the South. They all want to live in their mythical “1950’s utopia” and damn anyone or anything that impedes that fantasy.
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: I hope it’s the beginning of a trend.
Barbara
@Gravenstone: I am not sure I would even notice Disney productions after 1990 if I didn’t have kids, and since they are now no longer kids, I am pretty fuzzy on the most recent productions. So, do these people watch these movies with their grandkids and freak out?
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Slightly OT (but in the realm of entertainment):
I don’t get the appeal of HBOs “Succession”.
Somebody I share a home with insists on us watching it together, and it makes me grind my teeth so hard they’re gonna crack.
Real people don’t talk like the featured family, their behavior is stupid, and I hate them in a way where I don’t care about what they do or what happens to them.
Sometimes I like shows featuring awful people – but the writers left common sense at the door when writing the dialogue for this show. You have a mixture of pontificators interacting with people who are always insulting each other over dad’s state, who gets control and share price, and everyone is constantly squabbling. At some point much earlier, people would say “screw this” and leave the room – instead, they hang out for more abuse.
The whole thing just assaults my ears and psyche by hammering at them with negativity an hour at a time.
Barbara
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I kind of felt the same way about Breaking Bad. I only watched the last season (on an airplane) and although it was clever and involving, there was only one person who had even an iota of personal appeal, not to mention a conscience and a back story that reasonably explained his association with a meth operation. Five seasons! I didn’t go back and watch the first four.
lowtechcyclist
@Shalimar:
In another, distant lifetime, I was a trusts-and-estates paralegal.
sheila in nc
@Barbara:
Got it in one. As a current resident of Orange County, NC, I had to confess I didn’t know the original of my county’s name. So I turned to Google:
“Orange County, annexed from Bladen, Granville, and Johnston in 1752, was named in honor of William the Fifth of Orange; King George III was William’s grandfather. “
trollhattan
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Beyond the obvious Murdoch family sendup it’s kind of the inverse of reality shows, which are a platform to present “everyday” people to feel superior to (Kardashians as everyday people is a large lift). With “Succession” you have a dysfunctional 0.1%er family to feel superior to, all while watching them take an active role in destroying our democracy. Fun!
UncleEbeneezer
I know this is a fantasy but I wish Disney would really lean into this with a national advertising campaign that the Republican Party is actively Anti-Business. And start openly supporting Dem Candidates. I know, I know…but I can dream…
Matt McIrvin
They are, it’s a real point of anger among right-wing white Disney fans.
And more specifically: Splash Mountain, one of Disney’s best-loved theme park rides, is a Song of the South ride. From, like, 1989, which is weirder the more you think about it. They did some careful editing of the material to keep out the most egregious stuff, it’s just based on the animated bits, but… yeah. But, you know, aside from that it’s a well-done ride, basically a log flume combined with an elaborate dark ride, so a lot of people like it.
In 2020, during one of the periodic waves of temporary reassessment of old racist crap, they announced they were going to shut it down and re-theme it to The Princess and the Frog. Howling and moaning, rending of clothes. They are so fucking mad. And a lot of white people who are just nostalgic about the ride are peeved too, so they have some leverage there.
They recently started work on this. One of the things DeSantis tried was to give Splash Mountain historic landmark status to stop the re-theme. Just blatant culture war bullshit. Disney just ignored him and I have no idea if he’s tried taking it further.
Almost Retired
@Matt McIrvin: By coincidence, I was at downtown Disney last night to meet out of town friends who spent the day at the park. They report that Pirates of the Caribbean is now completely wench-free.
Tenar Arha
@Matt McIrvin: They did also decide to re-up Mickey (who was no longer a hugely popular film character even with all his merch), with the animated short “Get a Horse” in 2014. This probably will allow them to retain a copyright marker on everyone they re-used in that short. It clearly was was both a nostalgic homage, but also seems to have been a set up for something like what The Arthur Conan Doyle estate eventually did with Sherlock Holmes.
Tim Curtin
They also fired Ike Perlmutter, one of Trump’s toadies at Mar a Lago. Trump had him doing something shady with the VA.
mrmoshpotato
@Almost Retired:
But did Pirates of the Caribbean break down, and the pirates started eating the tourists?
Betty Cracker
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: So funny that you mentioned Succession now because I was just wondering whether anyone here still watches it. I watched the first episode of the last season yesterday.
I resisted watching it for years because I loathe everything about the concept of “ultra high net worth” individuals and figured all the characters would be scumbags. Which they are! But once I started watching it, I was hooked, binged multiple seasons and was eagerly awaiting the last.
And though I’ve often found it difficult to enjoy shows where there’s no one with any redeeming features (the first season of White Lotus left me cold for that reason), I somehow find watching the horrible Succession people slugging it out very entertaining. In sort of the same way I enjoy watching Repub-on-Repub conflict.
I agree about the dialogue to some extent — there’s an awful lot of pontification and exposition, but for me there’s enough evisceration to make it worthwhile. God, how I hate that fucking sad sack sumbitch Kendall! The actor is good! Also, he’d be perfect for a Humphrey Bogart bio-pic,
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: It’s kind of a mystery to me what the difference is between entertainment with awful people that are fun to watch (the “Knives Out” films, “August: Osage County”) and entertainment with awful people that I really can’t stand and walk away from (“Glengarry Glen Ross”, Pinter’s “The Homecoming”).
This is subjective of course, but those are my personal reactions.
Maybe it’s a sense that the actors are having a hoot with the material too.
One that’s somewhere in between for me is “Fences”. I’ve read it, I’ve seen productions, I really want to watch the Denzel Washington / Viola Davis version. But I’ve been putting it off because I find the Troy character and his actions so awful that it’s hard for me to get through.
Ruckus
@TaMara:
A friend of my dads oldest daughter went to work for Walt wearing a costume and walking about Main St. when it first opened in the the mid 1950s. I believe she was hired before the park actually opened. We thought it was a pretty big deal, getting to work at Disneyland. The pay was rather good. I’ve known people that worked there, one a welder worked in maintenance.
PaulWartenberg
@Tom Levenson:
No, the Mouse does play, and It PLAYS TO WIN.
I learned this lesson when I was 8 years old watching Disney lawyers go after a Tarpon Springs day care: DO NOT EVER F-CK WITH DISNEY.
As for the use of the British Royals as the standard to set the “against perpetuity” bit, the whole concept of this law stems from old English Common Law upon which even our modern American legal system is based. They kinda HAD to use King Charles and his descendants as the measuring stick.
On the bright side, this makes Harry and Meghan’s daughter – the youngest of the grandchildren – the Disney Princess That Was Promised. All Hail Princess Lilibeth Diana, Third Of Her Name, Protector of Lake Buena Vista, Defender of EPCOT, Duchess of International Drive, and the future Mother of Gators.
UncleEbeneezer
@Barbara: FWIW, I don’t think it’s really possible to appreciate BB without seeing those first 4 seasons. Most of its’ brilliance is in the long arc of the story, even though I think the last season was one of the very few examples of a fitting ending for a great show.
Matt McIrvin
@Almost Retired: Oh, God, the Pirates revision was another one that occasioned endless moaning about Woke Disney. It basically happens any time they change anything for any reason.
Ksmiami
@Jeffg166: growing up in So Cal, the expression “rooms full of Disney lawyers” seems appropriate right now… God DeSantis is such a vile schmuck.
PaulWartenberg
Scoring cheap political points against a pro-gay corporation.
PaulWartenberg
@Old School:
I think James Bond would stop DeSantis if he tries.
Gravenstone
Especially if the new 007 ends up being an individual of color, as that would be their worst “woke” nightmare given flesh.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Agreed. That was a brilliant series.
Ruckus
@sab:
Oh he learned. But it seems his brain doesn’t operate like most humans, just the rather shitty ones. In his world the earth rotates around the pole he has stuck up his backside. It doesn’t always work out the way he thinks it does, this being the ass the world rotates around.
Origuy
I don’t know the date of that Declaration, but currently Charles’ youngest descendant is Harry and Meaghan’s daughter Lilibet, born June 2021. If she lives as long as her great- grandmother, 96, it will be 2128 before the declaration expires.
Citizen Alan
@Shalimar: Yeah, that “SPLATT!!” sound you all just heard was the sound of every Property Law instructor in the nation creaming their pants in delight that the Rule Against Perpetuities has become an issue of national importance for the first time in the nation’s history.
PaulWartenberg
@sab:
Well, to be fair, Rules Against Perpetuity is such an obscure legal precedent that few law schools even teach it in any depth. They let it go to property law and gloss over it.
apocalipstick
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I don’t think it was even a law; it was the rantings of a witch-burning crank with whom Alito felt kinship.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
Yeah, this is the thing I noticed about that quote. The whole purpose of this kind of district is to provide boring local government services. It’s bizarre to think it should somehow have the right to rule over the details of what Disney does, particularly what Disney does outside Florida. It’s exactly the kind of government overreach and meddling with private enterprise the old-school Republicans I grew up listening to would hate.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: The conservative base is already convinced that Disney has been corrupted by wokeness and loves this stuff. It’s a primary-election push for the 2024 presidential nomination, I think. Everything he does is authoritarian posturing in support of an existing right-wing culture war marker.
OzarkHillbilly
@UncleEbeneezer: Dead on. It was good, tho strangely enough I feel no need to watch it again.
Dangerman
Does Mickey have enough fingers to have a middle one? Can we take up a collection if one the Mickey’s flips an appropriate one? I know Disney Characters get fired if they take iff the head in public.
UncleEbeneezer
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I don’t get it either. At least with shows like White Lotus, you still get lots of gorgeous people, scenery and sometimes deeper messages about Colonialism and the exploitation of Hospitality Workers.
Snowfall gives you a similar cast of characters where pretty much every one is terrible (at some point) but at least explores the American Racism and Xenophobia that push them there. I’d much rather watch characters struggling in the hood, left with no alternatives, going bad, than ultra-rich, white characters doing so only to become even-more-ultra-rich.
That said, I do really enjoy The Crown, which is also about ultra-rich, but in its’ defense I think that show does a great job of highlighting the fact that the Royal Institution doesn’t really allow the characters to be good people. When they try they are usually punished for it.
Fair Economist
Strange to be rooting for the Mouse.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: I am assuming they would try to use their authority over infrastructure as leverage — we’ll only approve this thing you want if you agree to terminate Pride Day at Disney properties, or something like that.
UncleEbeneezer
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah once was definitely enough. Though we still often reminisce about some of the many, totally-CRAZY, iconic scenes and twists. We are in the final season of Better Call Saul now and so far, I still don’t feel anywhere near as impressed with it as we were for Breaking Bad. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a damn good show, and maybe the final season will prove us wrong, but every time I see the claim that BCS>BB I’m still like, really??!
Cameron
@Dangerman: He’s got enough to eat pudding out of a cup.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
I think this gets back to the basic point: they thought they would always be in the majority. It turns out that at the same time they’ve been trying to other one group at another, non-Hispanic Whites have been shrinking as a fraction of the population. By the time you throw out all the groups they despise- non-Christians, LGBTQIA+ people, non-bigots, etc.- they are not even close to a majority anymore. Even worse, they are so far from being a majority that they can’t even maintain cultural dominance by taking advantage of their disproportionate wealth and power. That means they might not even be able to maintain that disproportionate grip on wealth and power anymore, and everything will come crashing down.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: So, it makes you wonder what exactly they had in mind to do? I think we all know – get all the “woke” out of Disney, whatever the hell that means.
As for “the will of the voters”, did the voters actually vote for the state to take that over? I don’t remember that happening.
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: Let’s just say, I have great difficulty with a series that gives even passing sympathy and interest to the portrayal of meth dealers (or drug dealers in general). I get the entertainment value, and I don’t agree with harsh drug laws but I just can’t look at it as entertainment given how our society condemns a lot of people to jail basically forever when they do stuff like “Heisenberg” and “Jesse” and crew — but of course, a grossly disproportionate number of those people, unlike Walter et al., are not white. I have a similar reaction to any entertainment that involves mafioso types.
OzarkHillbilly
Same here, many many laugh out loud moments. I haven’t seen any of BCS because we don’t have TV. Maybe some day I’ll find a cheap DVD set.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Origuy: Life in being PLUS the other 21.
Means 2136.
If we’re doing genre mashups with Paramount, we’re getting into Star Trek years there.
Soprano2
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: They want to make society “safe” for themselves, which means nothing is allowed to be made or done that would make them the least bit uncomfortable. To them, that’s what “freedom” means, and the rest of us who don’t want that should just come around to their idea of “freedom”.
Citizen Alan
@Mr. Bemused Senior: It’s the same thing with Republican criminality. No Republican objects to any of Trump’s crimes because they assume as a matter of faith that all Democrats do the same thing but worse. Only we get away with it because people like Bill and Hillary and Obama are just so much more diabolically cunning than Republicans,
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Fair Economist:
Makes me feel pretty dirty. My last Disney visit was 21 years ago, and I avoid it like the plague. If I’m going to overspend for travel, I want to go somewhere awesome and adventurous while seeing depraved attractive people show off body parts.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, copyright lengths are already so absurdly long it would be laughable to ask for further extensions. Anybody with an interest in historical art has noticed the weird problems showing up now like orphan works, where nobody knows who’s got the copyright and so there is *no* way to present the art. Entirely the opposite of the constitutional provision “To promote the progress of science and useful arts”
Disney’s version of Winnie the Pooh has nearly 40 years of copyright protection left, regrettably.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Mnemosyne had an interesting take on the perpetual extension of copyright law, though one that was obviously colored by working for The Mouse. She said there were serious problems with works that mixed copyright claims, like a movie that included a copyrighted song. The studio that made the movie had copyright on the whole work, but the songwriter had a copyright on the song lyrics and the singer might have a copyright in the performance.
So what do you do if the 95 years from creation copyright for the movie runs out before the life + 75 years for the author of the song lyrics? When the movie was made, the studio cut some kind of deal with the songwriter about payment, but that no longer holds when the copyright runs out. So in theory people could try to do an end-run around the songwriter’s copyright by using a clip from the movie, or the songwriter’s estate could try to stop people from ever taking advantage of the expired copyright on the movie by asserting copyright over the song. It’s a real problem that needs to be addressed, and Mnemosyne thought Congress was basically punting on coming up with a solution by extending copyright.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Fair Economist:
There is a very valid argument to be made that American intellectual property law stifles advancement and improvement in every area of science, medicine and art by granting overlong, overbroad protection.
China’s leapfrogging over the top of American developments makes sense for their society, and makes improvement cheaper.
StringOnAStick
@Delk: Harry very noisily showed up in Britain for a legal case against their crap media. I think he meant it when he said he’s making taking them down his life’s work.
We read Spare for our book club last month (the libertoonian refused to read it because as he said he “hates Megan Markel”). I’ve never paid attention to the royal family other than the occasional headline that flew by, but I came away thinking his grievances against the media are justified, and annoyed that even as little as I paid attention, everything I knew about the totals had first been filtered through Rupert’s colon.
Now we’re watching The Crown from the beginning and given how little we knew about any of their history, it’s pretty eye opening. Granted I know it is historical fiction, but the facts about what a Hitler supporter/buddy the abdicated king was are shocking.
trollhattan
@UncleEbeneezer: Agree. Parachuting in one will be completely detached from the backstories, which are very carefully crafted over the run. Vince Gilligan is a damn genius, on the level of the Cohen brothers, both as writer and director. And Cranston is a top-shelf actor.
Geminid
@sheila in nc: It figures you upstart North Carolinians would name your Orange County after William the 5th of Orange, in 1752. Our Orange County was established in 1734, and is named after William the 4th of Orange. We don’t call Virginia the Old Dominion for nothing!
JAFD
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: John McPhee wrote the book Oranges
https://www.amazon.com/Oranges-John-McPhee/dp/0374512973
which will tell you more than you ever wanted to know.
mdblanche
So which of Charles’ grandkids gets the cryogenic tube next to Walt’s to keep them alive in perpetuity?
UncleEbeneezer
@Barbara: Fair. Then yeah, you should probably skip BB.
I definitely prefer series’ like The Wire, Narcos and Snowfall that have greater focus on how people at the bottom of our hierarchies get into dealing/crime and all the things the force them into that life (though some of the characters are just rich assholes, for sure). Those shows are much more commentaries/examinations of our society than series’ like Breaking Bad or Ozark.
Bokonon
I am in the tech industry … and I strongly recommend that you go with a third party password security solution that is independent of Microsoft, Apple, etc.
Jackie
@Baud: I like the enlarged bases for more potential stealing; hate the 2 throws only to pick off potential stealers. I love seeing a pitcher nailing a base runner leading too far off 1st.
geg6
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
I watched half of the first season (same as I did with GoT, with the same reaction). I couldn’t watch another minute of these idiotic and disgusting people. I do not begin to understand why this show is such a critical darling. I think it’s awful, exactly as I did GoT.
frosty
I made it through the first few episodes of Schitt’s Creek thanks to Stevie, the only non-cringe character at the beginning. After that everyone occasionally did something redeeming.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yes, these actors were clearly having a hoot with their characters. Catherine O’Hara was wonderfully over the top!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Bokonon: Didn’t know there was such a thing.
Are you talking about things like these? I assume it’s relatively easy to integrate those with browsing on an iPhone?
geg6
@Barbara:
Oooo, that’s another one I watched a few episodes of and never went back to because, seriously, who gives a crap about these trashy people? All awful, without one redeeming quality.
Citizen Alan
@Roger Moore: Relatedly, this issue is also the cause of the utter tragedy that WKRP in Cincinnati, IMO one of the best sitcoms in history, doesn’t get anywhere near the cultural relevance it deserves because the rights to use music played on the radio station ran out and so it cannot be syndicated using the original songs, songs which were often plot relevant.
On a personal note, I can trace my own emerging disdain for the religious right to the episode where a Pat Robertson lookalike was trying to bully the station out of playing “offensive” music. The climax involved Arthur Carlson reading the lyrics to Imagine by John Lennon to the evangelist running things and asking if it needed to be banned despite having no vulgar lyrics at all but merely advocated for atheism and communism. And of course it went on the banned list.
And yet, because of the vagaries of copyright law, I haven’t seen that episode in probably 30 years. All I ever see of WKRP is the Pinedale Shopping Mall bit every Thanksgiving.
James E Powell
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
According to wikipedia – which is infallible – they are called “The Oranges” – named for William of Orange, aka William III, King of England, who married his cousin Mary, the daughter of King James II.
Bokonon
@Roger Moore: The scary thing? I think their idea of controlling Disney’s content boils down to “nice theme park and roads and infrastructure you have there … it would be a SHAME if anything happened to them!”
Which is increasingly the GOP’s approach to using government functions as a way intimidate the private sector and exert gangster-style power. If you don’t want to get abused or put out of business … you have to play along.
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
I think the pitch clock is a solution to a real problem. Fans have been saying for a long time that the problem with baseball isn’t the length of the games, per se, but the amount of dead time within the game. MLB tried to encourage players to speed up the pace of play, but encouragement wasn’t enough. Now there’s a clock, and it seems to be doing a good job of cutting out the wasted time within the game.
My prediction is that the pitch clock will become this generation’s designated hitter. A noisy minority of people will hate it because it goes against tradition, while a majority of people will accept it as something that makes the game more enjoyable to watch.
lurker
@Matt McIrvin:
@Matt McIrvin:
There was a splash mountain ride at Disneyland (CA) at least in the seventies. Not clear on how things transpired at Disneyworld (FL). My recollection of the west coast version was that it was well loved, in part due to hot Anaheim summers. Do not recall it being explicitly song of the south based, but everything I read about it says it was.
The parks definitely copy things from one park to the other at times though.
Bokonon
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yeah, it’s a thing. There are several services (offered by the likes of companies like Microsoft and Okta) that essentially create a digital keyring and maintain your passwords while constantly checking their security.
This won’t help you if a particular website gets hacked, but it definitely helps you log on and use those sites in a more secure way.
trollhattan
@Citizen Alan:”The struggle is real” WRT budgeting music rights for film and shows. As a random example I recently read an interview about making “Dazed and Confused” and how much of their total budget went directly to the music. I wonder how much that may impact offering it on streaming services, but perhaps use rights take different forms (e.g., for a defined timespan versus in perpetuity.)
I also wonder if ASCAP and BMI still haunt bars and restaurants to invoice them for unlicensed music use? Ah, the good old days.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: The designated hitter does not make the game more enjoyable to watch.
sheila in nc
@Geminid:
Well, that’s why they call North Carolina the valley of humility between two mountains of arrogance…
One time I went to Historic Williamsburg where one of the re-enactors was making conversation with the visitors — we said we were from NC and the guy said something like, “Oh, they are just savages!”
NotMax
@StringOnAStick
FYI.
Hitler’s Favourite Royal, documentary about Britain’s Prince Charles Edward (one of Victoria’s grandsons) currently streaming on Tubi, Freevee and Pluto.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Snowflakes and their safe spaces.
geg6
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I can never resist August Wilson. Not only a hometown hero, but just a brilliant playwright. I love Fences. First saw it the August Wilson Theater here.
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: There’s a highway sign that calls them “The Oranges.”
Jeffro
@Bokonon:
THIS.
And while many nasty parts of the GOP pre-date trump’s arrival, this B-movie mob boss stuff can be laid squarely at his feet.
zhena gogolia
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I wanted to watch because I knew one of the stars once, but I only made it through 15 minutes.
sheila in nc
@Gin & Tonic:
I think it’s appreciated by fans who support a particular player. I would think the DH allowed some players to stay active much longer than they otherwise would have, and if watching that guy was why you were watching baseball, well then…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@geg6:
i had a project going to read the entire Century Cycle in order of decade but lost steam after Fences. No particular reason, really ought to finish that project.
Have you seen the film of Ma Rainey with Chadwick Boseman? I think that might have been the last or nearly the last thing he did.
Kayla Rudbek
@TaMara: one of my favorite fanfic authors who was a UK IP attorney would refer to Disney’s IP lawyers as the Nazgûl. Do not mess with the Mouse, indeed.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Thinking specifically about Knives Out, I think there are a couple of important points:
trollhattan
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: An aunt and uncle on mom’s side lived in East Orange. IDK what it’s like today but they had a beautiful apartment they lived in something like forty years.
zhena gogolia
@StringOnAStick: That is one of the best episodes. Alex Jennings is brilliant.
burritoboy
Breaking the legal form under which Disney operates would break much of how very wealthy families such as the Colliers operate in Florida. You Florida residents already know of what I speak, but to give others a picture: the Colliers alone own millions of acres in Florida, and have an entire county named after them, which they founded. (The Colliers’ wealth is now usually estimated at around $2.5-3 billion, but the true extent of their holdings is unknown and may be much larger.) The Colliers (and families like them) are the backbone of the Florida Republican Party, and, (well-known to insiders to Florida politics), there are multiple prominent figures who effectively are family representatives. These representatives will often jokingly be referred to as “the assemblyperson from Collier” or the like, even if they are theoretically representing a large group of people. These families are no joke, and are very closely linked to such families as the Bushes.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
The funny thing is that Pride Day has never been an officially sanctioned Disney event. It’s a purely fan-driven event. Yes, Disney has some pride-themed merchandise, and they try to make sure it’s prominently available on Gay Day, but ultimately they’re just going with what visitors want to do.
geg6
@UncleEbeneezer: I must be some sort of alien who doesn’t get Earthlings’ entertainment. GoT, Succession, Breaking Bad, The Crown…tried like hell to like or just even sit through a full season of them and just.could.not. I do not understand this Earthling culture that finds entire shows and all the stupid and cruel characters to not be boring and unwatchable. I don’t get it and probably never will.
JAFD
@Citizen Alan: Also the reason why George R.R. Martin’s The Armageddon Rag – IMVAO (I was there) one of the best books on America in the 1960’s – didn’t get reprinted for 22 years.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
That is one righteous rant. Preach it!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I started watching it waiting for it to get good, there were enough flashes of good that I’ve stuck with it, but it feels to me like they have a great concept and fictional world to operate in, a great cast, and can’t quite figure out what to do with either.
geg6
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Yes, and it’s wonderful!!!!!!!
Steeplejack
@sheila in nc:
William’s grandfather was George II, not George III.
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
You also have things like Killer of Sheep. It is widely regarded as a masterpiece, but it was kept from wide distribution for decades because of issues with the rights to the music. Eventually, Steven Soderbergh donated $150,000 to get the music rights so it could be released. And that’s for a movie that was good enough the Library of Congress chose it for the National Film Registry.
IMO, the solution to this kind of thing is some kind of compulsory licensing. I think it would only make sense in the case where the music (or other included work) had been properly licensed in the first place. When the original license ran out, the copyright holder (or anyone who wanted to distribute the work if it was out of copyright) would be able to keep distributing it by paying a standard license fee.
yellowdog
@Snarki, child of Loki: You’ve just written the cold open for SNL.
Bostondreams
@sheila in nc:
As a lifelong Boston fan, I shall always be grateful for the existence of the DH because it gave us the incredible David Ortiz.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@zhena gogolia: I feel like the thing is jackhammering my mood. It feels like pain at work.
UncleEbeneezer
@geg6: Game of Thrones is literally about who plays the game the best. That’s the whole point. Not who is likable or righteous (though there definitely ARE characters of that stripe in the show). It is also about what makes people do terrible things. Sometimes they are just terrible, sometimes it is their only way to survive. It’s ugly and complicated like life. I get though why some wouldn’t want to spend their time watching it. I feel much the same way about earnest shows where everyone is unnaturally good/nice. They are unwatchable to me. I also HATED Knives Out and thought it failed in every way (not funny, not interesting, over-the-top, not a good mystery etc.). To each their own…
zhena gogolia
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Once somebody throws up inside a mascot costume, I’m out.
Roger Moore
@Bokonon:
The good password keepers will help with hacks in three ways:
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Many people don’t like watching pitchers try to hit; they’d rather see someone who’s actually competent.
kalakal
@geg6: You can get away with it with comedies where all the characters are basically awful people, Seinfeld, Arrested Development etc. A lot of the fun with Arrested Development was how each character became progressively worse
Matt McIrvin
@lurker: Yeah, the California and Florida ones are essentially the same ride, with some differences in detail. They’re redoing both of them.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: LOL! That’s what made me decide I had to keep watching — I laughed out loud at that. (Maybe because I grew up listening to the stories of a relative who wore the Goofy suit at WDW for a few years. He never threw up, but he did get kicked in the nuts once and punched multiple times.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kalakal: also, Veep. I guess the very likable Julia Louis-Dreyfuss likes to play unlikable
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I think they hear about it from outrage merchants like Tucker Carlson. “The wokesters at Disney have done it again.”
janesays
Somebody clarify what this means exactly:
Does that mean 21 years after the death of the last descendant who was born in Charles lifetime (presumably one of his grandchildren)?
gvg
@Citizen Alan: The original music rights were finally negotiated and a DVD set with almost all the original music produced by Shout! in 2014. Its been a pretty expensive set and I wasn’t sure it would live up to my memories so I have not bought it though I check the prices every once in a while. I have heard a few streaming services were finally trying it out but haven’t found it and I don’t pay for many of those either. Anyway, people say this version is good. Do not buy the older first version that came out on VHS and had none of the original music.
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: which is why we need to Rico the entire Republican infrastructure and destroy them
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Citizen Alan: Reeeeddddd WIGGLERS! The Cadillac of Worms! The Cadillac of Worms!
JohnC
@Citizen Alan: Good news! The 2018 Shout Factory DVD release of the complete WKRP has the great majority of the music intact.
‘WKRP in Cincinnati’ is getting a DVD release with its original music
WKRP in Cincinnati: The Complete Series [DVD] (Amazon)
From an Amazon review comment: “They included all of the important music except for Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and some of the Rolling Stones. The handful of music replacements are almost all appropriate and not intrusive.
(Edit: gvg the ninja!)
lowtechcyclist
@Fair Economist:
I don’t expect I’ll ever see it, but the copyright period should be short, relative to the scale of a human lifetime. The only reason the Founders thought there should be a period greater than zero was that creators would need some incentive to make it worth their while to produce new devices or artistic or literary creations.
The notion that, say, 30 years of being the rights-holder isn’t enough, that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, even, won’t get made if it enters the public domain after 30 years, is ridiculous. Even grandiose projects like that are only made if the studio is expecting to recoup its investment in a much shorter period of time. ISTM that is shouldn’t be Constitutional for any rights to extend further out than that.
In another forum, someone was making a big deal about people selling or giving away their old CDs, and how, if you’d copied them onto your computer, or a thumb drive, or whatever, and then sold or gave away your CDs from 1986, you were breaking the law. And I could only think, what crap that we have laws where this might be a problem.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: Shout! Factory went to the same herculean effort with SCTV, which had the same music problem–when they made the show they just didn’t bother securing the rights to anything, just stole with abandon.
There were a few very music-heavy sketches they had to cut, like the one about an album that was all covers of “Stairway to Heaven”.
Uncle Cosmo
@geg6: I never watched more than two minutes of GoT and then only by accident. I did, however, come upon a free pristine trade-paper dead-tree edition of the first volume at The Book Thing in Baltimore, and I considered it a sign from doG to put aside my aversion to fantasy (vs actual science fiction) and dive in…
And came up for air about halfway through to realize that I didn’t give a flying fuck about any of the characters. Not one. So on my next trip to The Book Thing I dumped it into the donation hopper. That may well be the ONLY time I’ve ever returned a fantasy/SF novel before I got through it.
Captain C
@dmsilev:
Despite the, um, degradation of their (the royal family’s) capabilities and skills over the decades, I would be highly surprised if, in the event this actually happened, this didn’t end very badly for the DeStupid Squad. Even after Brexit and nearly two decades of rule by the Flobalob Party, I suspect the UK’s secret services would be more than a match for whatever incompetent posse DeStupid was able to
vomitround up.And this is assuming that the DeStupid Squad didn’t just head for Disneyworld and start chasing little girls in princess outfits.
(edited for clarity)
Ken
“Terrible about the fire, but now we can re-build it with the insurance money, and upgrade the technology.”
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@janesays:
Chuckles is the benchmark, and ostensibly this means Lilibet’s life PLUS the 21 year period after her death.
If she lives as long as Liz, that means 2136 AD.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
Orange County, VA, was named after William III.
Ruckus
@Tim Curtin:
He might be the one that moved the billing from VA employees to a company that screwed it up and now makes a profit off the vets that have to pay copays. Ask me how I know.
sheila in nc
@Steeplejack:
So he was. I’ll have to write to the Orange County History website.
Captain C
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
There’s Orange, South Orange, West Orange, and East Orange. No North Orange that I know of.
Steeplejack
@sheila in nc:
Wikipedia is usually the best go-to.
I had to check because the dates seemed off. George III was only 10 years older than William, hence unlikely to be his grandfather.
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: Speak for yourself. I’m much happier not to have to watch one at-bat out of every nine frittered away in penultimate futility. (With rare exceptions, e.g., a southpaw who I saw play for the Phillies in the 1970s who could hit better than half of the fielders. Kid’s name was Ken Brett. Yeah, he had a brother named George. Those Bretts. ;^p)
Timill
@janesays: Your quote is missing the final part:
“…this declaration shall continue in effect until twenty one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England, living as of the date of this Declaration.”
So it’s triggered by the death of the last survivor of William, Harry, George, Charlotte, Louis, Archie and Lilibet.
billcinsd
@Roger Moore: Technically there has been a rule about how long a pitcher has to throw a pitch for a very long time. It was rarely if ever enforced. The pitch clock is longer than the time in the rule.
Also they could cut down on between inning times, but they won’t because that would anger their sponsors. If they don’t already have a sponsor, the pitch clock is good for sponsoring
Paul in KY
Ha! The King Charles corollary is about like getting ‘in perpetuity’ in there. That House (now that they aren’t the real powers in England and no infant mortality, etc. will be around forever). Buwahahahahahaha!!!!
cain
@Jeffro: When you have the judiciary in your pocket – who cares what the normies say? He’ll just declare that the election is flawed and the judges will agree with him as well as everyone else and he’s done.
Frankly, I’m not sure why he wants to be president when he’s the president of Florida and controls it to the extent that I think other dictators would be jealous.
Bupalos
I just about never look at the masthead before reading the article, and I never get all the way through a Betty Cracker missive without being willing to bet my life she’s the writer.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: You joke but I’m prrrrrretty sure something very much like that happened to the old Blue Streak roller coaster at Conneaut Lake not too long ago
(edit: except for the “rebuilding” part)
billcinsd
@janesays: It is the last descendant of those living at the time of the covenant
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: That’s death of last survivor of all the Descendants living now. There will never be a ‘last survivor’, IMO.
Paul in KY
@Old School: And any potential descendants of them.
lowtechcyclist
@cain:
Because one can only be FL governor for two consecutive terms, then you have to take one full term off before becoming governor again. So he has to give up his governorship at the beginning of 2027 no matter what. He can run again in 2030.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: IMO, it will essentially be ‘in perpetuity’ as that House has every incentive to churn out new generations and since they are all rich as Hell, with great medical and no ‘Game of Thrones’ stuff anymore, they’ll be around in the year 3000.
billcinsd
@Uncle Cosmo: George Herman Ruth, another good example, although before the olds here were alive. Don Newcombe was a good hitter, Don Drysdale was OK. Smokey Joe Wood was good enough that after his arm went he became a starting MLB outfielder. Wood and Ruth pitched and hit the Red Sox to the World Series title in 1915
sab
@janesays: As long as Archie MountbattenWindsor and his little sister are safe I am okay with this.
billcinsd
@Paul in KY: No. The clause has a part about the descendants alive at the time of the covenant.
Paul in KY
@sheila in nc: William IV (William V of Hanover) was Queen Victoria’s uncle.
lowtechcyclist
@Paul in KY:
Huh? I don’t get your meaning. Are you quibbling over the meaning of ‘last survivor,’ or are you disagreeing over a substantive point? If the latter, what is it?
ETA: Never mind, I saw your post #226. Once again:
There are only a handful of Chuck’s descendants who were “living as of the date of this Declaration.” Descendants born after that don’t count. When the last of the handful of his descendants already living here in March 2023 dies, the 21-year clock starts ticking.
Paul in KY
@Origuy: It says ‘ death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III’. If Lilibet has children and they have children and then they have children, they are all ‘descendants of King Charles III’.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: Are you sure? orangecountyva.gov says it was Prince William IV of Orange.
But maybe they’re wrong. They link to a photo of Governor Gooch’s proclamation, but that just describes him as the Prince of Orange.
And you never know these days. That Orange County Va.gov entry might have been written by a Yankee. Or even a North Carolinian.
Paul in KY
@StringOnAStick: His wife, The Duchess of Windsor, was probably a Nazi agent. She and Ribbentrop were great friends.
StringOnAStick
@NotMax: Thank you for that suggestion.
lowtechcyclist
@Paul in KY: Those potential children and children’s children of Lilibet – how many of them were “living as of the date of this Declaration”?
Oh, that’s right: zero.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: I think we’re talking about the House of Orange, not Hanover. Are you trying to start a war?
StringOnAStick
@Paul in KY: And now we have Camilla connected to Russian oligarchs, or at least that’s been mentioned here. The more things change…
Paul in KY
@Paul in KY: Seeing that it is supposed to be death of last descendant living now. That would make it into the 2130 range. Bummer. Still funny, though.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: See what you are saying now. I was too gleeful.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
I went by the Wikipedia entry for Orange County, VA, but upon doing a deeper dive I see that the entry for Prince William IV of Orange gives him credit for the name.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Roger Moore
@billcinsd:
I don’t think they could cut down on the between inning time that much. It legitimately takes time for the sides to switch places and the pitcher to take his warmup throws. The rule already anticipates there might be some additional delay beyond the 2 1/2 minute time because of the need for a catcher to put on or take off their protective gear.
More importantly, I think the pitch clock saving is more important from fan enjoyment. The thing that’s frustrating about slow times between pitches isn’t the absolute time the game takes as it is about the slow pace of play. Taking too long between pitches takes fans out of the game. It makes it way easier to get distracted, even during what should be tense, exciting parts of the game.
Roger Moore
@billcinsd:
I like pitchers hitting, but when your prime examples are from a century ago, your point is probably lost. Shohei Otani is obviously the exception, but he’s the only pitcher now playing who is remotely close to able to hold a job as a major league hitter, and probably the first in the past 40 years to do so. Seriously most “good hitting pitchers” don’t hit enough to stay in AAA ball if they were good fielding shortstops.
JAFD
@Uncle Cosmo: Mr. Martin borrowed my name for one of the characters therein. As you might have found out had you finished it, he meets a horrible death. (The character, that is – Not Mr. Martin)
kalakal
@Captain C:
Ron and his miserable men would get a visit from some very scary SAS people.
A once in a lifetime experience
denimull
@Tom Levenson: Any artist who barely even referenced a Disney property in a piece of artwork could have told Florida’s Little Napoleon what to expect when Mickey and the Gang decide to show you the Find Out portion of FAFO.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@PaulWartenberg:
On the bright side, this makes Harry and Meghan’s daughter – the youngest of the grandchildren – the Disney Princess That Was Promised. All Hail Princess Lilibeth Diana, Third Of Her Name, Protector of Lake Buena Vista, Defender of EPCOT, Duchess of International Drive, and the future Mother of Gators.
That’s so wonderful, it brought tears to my eyes. It’s Betty Cracker-level wonderful. Well played, sir.
Ken
The world does not need a Kind Hearts and Coronets remake, and DeSantis is no Dennis Price.
Timill
@Ken: Spoilsport! ;-)
Fair Economist
@lowtechcyclist:
Amen. The initial copyright duration was 14 years, extendable to 28. People live longer, so I think something in the 30-40 year range would be reasonable, but no more than that.