How it started;
How ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ became code for insulting Joe Biden
(I won’t be posting any of their “swag”)
This is what happens when you refuse to be baited and instead turn hate into love:
Brandon Brown unintentionally found himself in the middle of a political firestorm when "Let's Go Brandon" was adopted by foes of President Biden, but now the NASCAR driver hopes a child changes the narrative. https://t.co/14abCrMVEg
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) July 4, 2022
Wait for it:
JOE BIDEN JUST ACKNOWLEDGED THE DARK BRANDON WITHIN AT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER IN 2023 YEAR OF OUR LORD 🙌🏽 pic.twitter.com/TNs9fNS7gQ
— Renee (@PettyLupone) April 30, 2023
We memed Dark Brandon into existence oh my godpic.twitter.com/nIgMRFBMHK
— Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) April 30, 2023
Did anyone watch the nerd prom last night? I may look for highlights today.
Wood Jr: Y'all, give it up for dark Brandon. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Real quick, Mr. President, I think you left some of your classified documents up here. pic.twitter.com/zcDbGk4T1c
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 30, 2023
This is an open thread.
Asparagus Aspersions
The reclaiming of Dark Brandon brings me much joy. That’s how to play this, undermine their terribleness with humor. When it comes to a battle of wits, the left will always win.
cain
@Asparagus Aspersions:
That’s because the right doesn’t have much in terms of idea. Rigid thinking only leads to stagnation.
It’s why all the right wing comedians are not that funny.
Eunicecycle
I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the Ds have appropriated the Dark Brandon meme. Well done.
Kay
I didn’t watch except for clips. Roy Wood Jr. is funny. I like not-nasty or sarcastic humor. I am so tired of mean comics.
kalakal
I love the story of the two Brandons.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW watched the show last night. We call that peak nerdiness.
Baud
@Asparagus Aspersions:
I initially read that as “tits” and felt proud and then a little ashamed.
Baud
@Kay: Republicans made meanness uncool when they adopted it as public policy.
oldster
Biden also credited “the NY Times Pitchbot” — our very own Doug J!
https://twitter.com/nagy_minaj/status/1652500001824690176
Baud
@kalakal:
Didn’t Brandon Brown first get to play to the MAGAs? I thought I read that somewhere. Anywho, glad to see it being used more positivity.
kindness
Us rejoicing and using Dark Brandon as a meme has got to be really pissing off a bunch of the biggest haters out there. That makes it even more delicious to use and enjoy. Sure hope my enjoyment of their angst doesn’t slam my karma much. Such is life, eh?
Kay
@Baud:
Just that “I’m the smartest person in the room” edge that is so often used to punch down. I’m sick of it.
Kind of nice that Wood’s father was a journalist, too. Given that this thing is supposed to be about journalism. Very Joe Biden “normal” to bring it back to whatever it was supposed to be and have a comic who is not a mean spirited asshole.
Baud
Haha.
https://i.redd.it/0k6a1lxe12xa1.jpg
Asparagus Aspersions
@Baud: Proud and then ashamed is pretty much my baseline emotional state.
Baud
@Kay:
I’m sick of it too, especially since social media has made everyone an expert on everything.
Chris Johnson
@oldster: That is just awesome :)
Baud
@Asparagus Aspersions:
Oooh, nominated.
Miss Bianca
@Asparagus Aspersions: OMG, I just cracked up so hard at the Dark Brandon joke.
If I didn’t love Joe Biden so much already, I would have fallen for him just on the basis of that joke. Also, the DougJ shout-out.
Damn…am I going to have to watch the whole footage of the event? I swore off ever viewing it again after Obama, but I guess I may have to succumb after all!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Real expertise is still valuable though. But reading YouTube comments is not research and does not make you an expert.
lowtechcyclist
Good morning, y’all, while it’s still morning! (here in the Eastern time zone, that is)
Bill Hicks
You can get official Dark Brandon t-shirts on the Biden campaign website. I was thinking of getting one for my Mom for Mother’s Day, but I decided it was probably too edgy for her. I might have to get one for myself.
JAFD
This being an open thread, a media question for you:
About twenty years ago, I bought an AM-FM clock radio. That has now, from old age and accumulated hit points, become only an alarm clock.
I hear about ‘satellite radio’, etc, and wonder what the story is here, what sort of programming is available, what sort of hardware one needs.
Now, meself, usually have either WQXR.org (classical) or WBGO,org (jazz) on as background (Will readily acknowledge of my musical knowledge and tastes, and live in reinforced concrete building which messesup FM signals. Find it hard to concentrate on ‘spoken word’ broadcast or podcasst while doing other stuf.)
Your opinions and advice welcome. Thanks very much !
zhena gogolia
@Asparagus Aspersions: It’s brilliant.
I have to get the T-shirt, but I’m afraid people won’t understand it.
Asparagus Aspersions
@zhena gogolia: I will definitely get the T-shirt. I live in France, so almost no one would understand it, but I’ll enjoy wearing it anyhow.
VeniceRiley
Pitch bot shouout from the prez made my dda
yt I’d edit but a dog is li king my palm.
Virogenes
Last year, a guy would drive a pickup with a large MAGA flag mounted in the bed would drive through our local historic town center. He used a megaphone to yell “Let’s Goooo Brandon!” as he did it. Something about nice weather and a pleasant shopping district brings out a desire to annoy. Living in a very Democratic area, the obvious MAGAs are loud angry and in-your-face.
Asparagus Aspersions
@Miss Bianca: I have gone from being fine with Biden in 2020 to being a full-on fan. And the hat-tip to Doug J was just *chef’s kiss*.
Also, I’ve come to the realization that being able to laugh at yourself is a highly underrated but essential quality. Can you imagine anyone in the GOP’s line-up of freaks being able to poke fun at themselves? It’s such a human quality, but since most of them act like aliens who have been taught to impersonate humans by another alien who once had humans described to it, it’s a quality totally beyond their reach.
MazeDancer
@Bill Hicks: The Dark Brandon mug makes a nice gift.
Ordered one the first day, but they are not shipping until May 15.
Rounding out my collection of “Made in the USA” birth certificate mug from Mr. Obama and “But her emails” mug from Madam Secretary.
ETA: Anyone who wants to give anything as a “Coming Soon” gift can wrap a nice picture of it and present.
Kay
I won’t link to it, but given that this lavish star studded dinner is where journalists congratulate themselves on their work, the NYT’s magazine has a really bad “rundown” of the politics of public schools out today.
They spoke to no normie or liberal parents of public school students. It is 100% the viewpoints of the furthest Right and/or most anti public school parents along with Right wing activists. The single pro public school voice is a teachers union head and they paint her as divisive and radical.
They’re ridiculous. A Right wing newspaper that does reporting only from the most rigidly conventional view. Narrow, brittle people.
Butch
Apparently Biden called out Fox news, and the whining there this morning as a result is rumored to be at full volume. I’m not enough of a masochist to check for myself. (I didn’t watch the event.)
Baud
@Kay:
The NYT is garbage.
MomSense
I have some stupid chores to do today so I think I’ll watch Biden and Roy Wood jr. Has anyone seen the early clips of Wood when he was a baby journalist? He knows of what he mocks.
smith
@Kay: And yet, so many people, including liberals, give them full marks for being liberal. In fact, since Goobers wouldn’t sully their chaste little minds reading any “woke” publication, if it weren’t for liberals, FTFNYT would have barely any readers or subscribers left. How did this sado-masochistic relationship come to be?
lowtechcyclist
@Virogenes:
Been thinking about this in relation to loud motorcycles and big pickups tailgating. It’s a shame it won’t fit on a bumper sticker, but in situations where a sign can be used, my retort would be:
“You can’t be very manly if you need a machine to show what a man you are”
Kay
@Baud:
Could have been a really good article, because it’s weird, right? The school closures did not actually track with test score drops. And, despite the NYTimes anti labor union bent, the first person to mention school closures was not a teachers union head but the GOP governor of Ohio– who was easily re-elected in a Trump +8 state, BTW. So closing schools was not only not solely the decision of Randi Weingarten (ridiculous, for one thing there are TWO national teachers unions, not one and schools are governed locally) but was actually led by a GOP governor in a red state and he is popular. Too many contradictions! They can’t deal! Back to The Narrative!
They’re rewriting history. Their version is dumber and less interesting than what actually happened.
New Deal democrat
I would like to see an interview with the Chinese guy who invented Dark Brandon as the character sitting atop a pile of armaments, thinking it was an excellent propaganda poster (assuming he is still with us).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I also remember him leaning into the anti-Biden sentiment, but if he’s turning it around to help that kid, and other autistic kids… even I can let things go. I never forget, but sometimes I forgive. Sometimes
MazeDancer
Gave in. Watched both speeches.
Full videoes:
POTUS
Roy Wood
Kay
@smith:
I don’t think they’re “liberal” or “conservative”. I think they’re a perfect reflection of what a very conventional, very rigid group of college educated people who either are or think they are influencers believe.
One of the most interesting things that came out in the pandemic was that AA and Latino parents were much more supportive of school closures than white parents. That’s part of the reason urban areas stayed closed longer than rural areas. I don’t know why that is- could be they were more vulnerable to the virus, could be they get lower quality medical care so couldn’t take risks, but I guess we’ll never know because no one in media bothers to look. It’s easier to set this up as “teachers unions versus conservative parents”. Apparently there are no liberal or pro public school parents- they don’t exist.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t know. We complain about normies who still think both parties are the same, but we can’t or won’t stop the NYT from trolling liberals.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My hazy memory is he was doing it for monetary rather than ideological reasons. But he’s not important enough to hold a grudge. I’m also glad to see him put a more positive spin on the chant.
eclare
That story is beautiful! Thank you!
Spanky
@Kay:
“Dumber and less interesting” is how that role in everything.
Wapiti
@Kay: Could also be (partly) that AA and Latino families are more likely to live in multigenerational households (which might be tied to family wealth?).
mrmoshpotato
I watched President Biden’s and Roy Wood Jr.’s remarks in their entirety. And I highly recommend both.
eclare
@Wapiti:
That’s what I was thinking, more extended families in the same household. So it’s more dangerous for grandma if their second grader goes to school in person.
Kristine
@MazeDancer: I just ordered a mug too. Made a donation.
I’m not used to this kinda-optimistic-as-the-GQP-looks-to-be-circling-the-drain feeling. I’m usually right there with the Slavic fatalism–no good mood ever goes unpunished–and yes I know there is still so much to do and so many broken things to rebuild. But I sense some hints of change and I hope I’m not wrong.
mrmoshpotato
@Asparagus Aspersions:
And then slap them with a giant fish for extra humor.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s especially important for public schools because public schools are 10 to 20 years ahead of the “adult” country. They’re more diverse than the country as a whole, partly because there’s some “sorting” where well off kids attend private schools.
“This is what middle and upper class white people think about public schools” becomes less and less relevant.
smith
@Kay: I agree that they aren’t liberal or conservative, but instead reflect the unacknowledged third point of gravitational pull in our politics, the interests of rich people. On individual issues they can swing either way, depending on both how much they perceive a particular policy might help or hurt them (or their media owners) as affluent people, as well as on how they will be perceived by their cohorts. These people value their reps as being liberal on social issues, since conservatives are just too dorky for words, but don’t expect them to support any substantive changes in economic policy to make the goals of these social issues a reality.
CaseyL
@Spanky:
I am continually astonished at how cramped and uninteresting their views of everything are. Everything is simple, self-contained, and self-explanatory.
Especially the religious nutters: the Universe was created 6000 years ago by God saying “Poof!” or whatever. And everything is “God did it.” No interrelationships, no correlation (much less causation), no kinship to be found with anything else anywhere else.
The real universe, cosmology/paleontology/etc., are so much more vivid, interesting, and thought-provoking.
I wonder if that sort of view pre-selects for people who always were incapable of thinking outside their own little box, or if people fall into it and lose the capacity and/or desire to think outside their own little box.
MazeDancer
POTUS at #WHCD
Screamed with laughter. The ridic press, of course, did not
Kay
@Wapiti:
Oh, well, someone would have to ask them and I guess no one ever will. Especially odd in a country where public schools (nationally) are majority minority.
Baud
@MazeDancer:
Hahaha. I hadn’t seen that one yet.
Alison Rose
@MazeDancer: Hm. Wood was kinda funny but the school shooting joke was in extremely poor taste. Like…sure the follow-up is to admonish the GOP for not doing anything about it, but I don’t think it was appropriate, even under the guise of “comedy” to use that as a punchline.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: NYT reporters and editors believe that they are liberal but their coverage of politics favors Republicans nine times out of ten. So I judge them by their actions and their actions tell me that they are cheerleaders for the Republican party.
It is cool to hate on the Democratic party and that’s what the coverage reflects.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep. It’s why the GOP has a fighting chance despite everything they’ve done and propose to do.
zeecube
@JAFD: Think of satellite radio as clear signal FM with about160 stations to choose, most commercial free, but costs $8 – $16 / mo. But there may be a free trial period for new users. There are several classical and jazz stations to which you can listen. Mz. ZC likes satellite radio because it also carries MSNBC.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: And even people who are ostensibly on our side do it, a lot. Who are they? They are usually media darlings. Hating on the Ds makes you one.
Timill
@lowtechcyclist: Bad news: this shop can print it https://www.amazon.com/Custom-Sticker-Creative-Customize-Printed/dp/B08G1WLKP4?th=1
Alas, it can’t take “Si hoc adfixum in obice legere potes, et liberaliter educatus et nimis popinquus ades”…
schrodingers_cat
I have two pieces of art to share
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
👍
Regnad Kcin
@JAFD: MyTuner app on Roku…
Eolirin
@eclare: It also means there’s less cost and fewer logistical issues with kids suddenly being home because there’s someone to watch them that isn’t going to have to work.
gene108
@smith:
I believe the NYT does what it does because the people running the paper believe that’s how the world should be, and riling up their readers increases engagement, i.e. lots of comments on the article.
trollhattan
@oldster: OMG, to think we knew him as a whippersnapper blogger. How quickly they grow up.
I know this is a stretch, but if Joe Brandon knows of him the actual NYT op-ed crew surely does, as well. Do they enjoy being [justly] mocked? There’s a way to make it stop.
Phylllis
@JAFD: I have Sirius in my car and love it. There’s also an app with additional channels, but I haven’t used that. A co-worker has it and uses it with a portable radio/receiver thingy that she really enjoys.
trollhattan
@JAFD: I have this: https://gracedigital.com/products/mondo-elite-classic
It’s pretty slick and looks nice, like an early-’60s wood table radio, not yet another digital gizmo.
Kind of wish it had a tuner built in too, for when wifi is down, but that’s the only shortcoming.
Steeplejack
@Miss Bianca:
Roy Wood Jr. was awesome. Highly recommended. Check out this clip:
smith
@gene108: Seems to me that hopping on an NYT comment line with the aim of straightening them out has as much chance of success as arguing with a Twitter troll. I realize there are people who are entertained by it, but really you’re just succumbing to the troll’s game.
gene108
@Kay:
Urban areas were hit the hardest, when the pandemic started. They had to take stronger measures because things went sideways there first and fast.
Urban areas have higher population densities. The ability to avoid people is harder, unless things are closed and people have to stay home.
Rural areas didn’t get hit as much until vaccines became available and they refused to get vaccinated.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
The Mike Pence part is really funny.
Kay
@gene108:
All good points and perhaps true. But if you’re only talking to white conservative edu-pundits and a national teachers union head about Chicago Public Schools and public school politics and Chicago Public Schools students are 46% Hispanic and 36% AA and 11% white you’re probably not getting an accurate or useful picture about parents views of school closures.
rikyrah
@Asparagus Aspersions:
Me too. Turning that Brandon bullshyt on its head and making it a cool meme FOR BIDEN?
YESS👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Salty Sam
My millennial niece said it much more succinctly when a big truck roared by us once belching black smoke:
”Nice truck. Too bad about the penis.”
rikyrah
@Kay:
Absolutely absurd. Thanks for pointing that out, Kay
Baud
@Salty Sam:
Sassy!
JoyceH
@gene108:
What struck me about the early days of the pandemic was that because the urban areas got hit first, the rural areas were convinced they were safe. The cities got the pandemic because they were Wicked, while the country was safe because they were Virtuous. That seemed to be the mindset.
Miss Bianca
@Asparagus Aspersions:
I just had to highlight this, both because I totally agree and also because that description just me LOL all over again!
rikyrah
@eclare:
This was true for Peanut. Both of her households are multi-generational , with every adult being part of a vulnerable population. We literally couldn’t take the chance of her going to school and catching COVID. EVERY ADULT closest to her was at risk.
Miss Bianca
@MazeDancer: bookmarking, thanks!
Steeplejack
@JAFD:
Just a tl;dr response here, because I have to go out, but I wanted to put down a marker in case you want more details later.
SiriusXM has two jazz channels, Real Jazz (traditional) and Watercolors (“smooth” jazz), and three or four classical channels. Benefits are lots of music (including “deep cuts”) with not much distracting chatter. Subscription can be spendy, depending on the level. The jazz channels are very good; I don’t listen to much classical.
You’ll need a device to play it on. Short answer: think about an Amazon Echo device. They have different ones at different price points—all of which have better sound quality than your old radio. You’d need to be connected to wi-fi, but that is probably a plus in your FM-blocking building.
Which leads me to my other suggestion, which is to just get an Echo first and stream WQXR and WBGO directly from their websites. You can decide later whether you want to add SiriusXM or another service.
Gotta go. More later, if desired. I’ll check back in a few hours.
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Bookmarked, thanks!
Citizen Alan
@JoyceH: This is why I will hate the republicans forever. Twenty years of preparation for a pandemic under four presidents from both parties. And they just threw it all out once the Initial numbers came in and it looked like cities. We’re getting harder hit than rural areas, blue states harder than redstates, and people of color harder than white people. And they literally made the conscious decision to “let them all die.”
smith
@Kay: Yes, and you have to recognize that there is a serious purpose behind how they frame a story, far beyond the simple desire to drive engagement. In this case, as you pointed out, it’s in large part to make teachers’ unions the villains in the supposed bad decision to close schools. In my opinion, this anti-union framing is there to appeal the audience NYT is actually catering to, which includes a lot of business owners and managers whose lives are made harder by unions.
This is not really a Republican-Democratic or liberal-conservative divide. That managerial class includes a lot of people who identify as Democratic and liberal, especially in the cities.
Nor is it really benign. Because NYT is considered the “paper of record” a lot of people first encounter a topic as it’s framed in the NYT. Once established, that framing is hard to shake even when new knowledge is acquired. This means that readers who accept the cover story that NYT is somehow representative of a liberal political viewpoint will still be dealing with the topic within the frame set by NYT, regardless of how much arguing goes on in the comment section. Thus are readers perpetually nudged rightward.
Kay
@rikyrah:
How did she do? My youngest struggled with the closure. He’s “social” – a friendly person- and he seemed diminished somehow – duller, slower, sadder. We ended up getting him (online) counseling because he was just so miserable which he said helped because he (of course!) liked his counselor. He’s okay now – recovered- but I don’t think it was at all easy for (some) of them.
OverTwistWillie
@JAFD:
I’d look at a streaming device over a sat radio. You can still subscribe to sat radio and stream it.
Public and classical stations all seem to be available on the Tune-in app without subscription. Then there is Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Sirius XM, etc, etc.
There are a plethora of HW platforms as well; Alexa, Apple, Google, and a bunch of other devices both up and down market.
Boiled down:
Do you want to pay for subscription service(s)?
What apps do you/want need?
Are they available on the hardware you are looking at?
cmorenc
@Kay:
I wonder to what extent the NYT editors edited the original (less unbalanced) version submitted by the writer to deliberately present it more in the frame of a RW critique of public schools?
rikyrah
@Kay:
It was hard on her. We recognized it as time went on. We did get her some therapy. Her grades went down. The saving grace was a tennis program she is in. It got her our of the house and with kids her age.
As soon as she got back into the classroom, her grades shot back up.
RepubAnon
@Salty Sam: How’s “Big Truck =Tiny Weiner”?
RepubAnon
@cmorenc: One wonders whether the NYT editors are told by their Country Club Republican owners as “Our readers are liberals, so we only need to tell them how the Conservatives think.”
rikyrah
@Citizen Alan:
This this
A thousand times THIS😠
Rusty
Biden’s reelection website has a DARK Roast Mug with Biden and the glowing eyes. Mine is on the way!! I’m going to use it every day between now and the election.
JoyceH
@Citizen Alan: What irks me about Republicans is their world view insistence that almost everyone (the Public At Large, not their in group, of course) is just Bad and they legislate accordingly. They appear to genuinely believe that school librarians would want to shelve hard core porn and let third graders check it out unless they passed a law against it.
And their insistence that if they didn’t outlaw it, people would abort babies up to birth out of a sheer whim, rather that late term abortions being due to dire medical emergencies – has there ever, EVER, been a case where a woman carried a pregnancy to a week till due date, and then went to her doctor and said, “You know what? I’ve changed my mind – so I want to abort this perfectly healthy baby.” But to hear them talk, that’s what happens all the time in those wicked enclaves of liberalism.
Matt McIrvin
@Virogenes: What I notice is that in online spaces where people are just talking about TV shows or pinball machines or what have you, it’s nearly always some right-wing asshole who will bring up the evils of Joe Biden or the menace of “wokeness” or trans people out of the blue, in what was previously not an overtly political discussion.
The interesting thing is that they’re the ones who are always complaining that everything got political. Of course it might be that from their perspective, the whole subject was political to begin with because it wasn’t catering to their ideology, or had a Black person in it or the M&M wasn’t wearing high heels or whatever.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: My daughter (late middle school then early high school) claimed she actually preferred online schooling to in-person, but her math grades said otherwise–she was struggling with that in particular until she got back to the classroom; I think she needed in-person coaching with Algebra 1, and not from me.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: I was the same way, my mother taught math for grades 8-10 and I didn’t want to learn from her. All the kids in the neighborhood would ask for her help but I was convinced that my teacher’s way was superior.
Virogenes
@Matt McIrvin: My experience exactly with my daughter.
gene108
@RepubAnon:
I think a lot of New York City based media hangs around with liberal people, because that’s who’s in NYC. They feel like NYC liberals are representative of liberals throughout America, so they focus on what’s unknown to them, which is rural white conservatives. They ignore rural black and Hispanic
conservatives.residents.@Citizen Alan:
The truly awful thing is in April 2020, when NYC was getting hammered, there’s no way in hell Donald Trump didn’t know where and who was being impacted. The fucker grew up Queens. The news reported freezer trucks at a hospital in Queens storing the dead because the morgue ran out of space is an area Trump must know well.
Because his hometown didn’t vote for him in 2016, he totally ignored their plight. The town he was born in, grew up in, made himself famous in, and lived for seven decades in, he just ignored because he was no longer popular there.
James E Powell
@Kay:
I try to mention this whenever this discussion comes up because I teach in Los Angeles schools and my students are 90% Mexican & Central American & 10% African American.
During the week that ended with schools closing on Friday, March 13, attendance was down about 50% because parents were keeping their kids home. Many students were already wearing masks.
When middle schools re-opened on April 26, 2021, 8 students showed up. It wasn’t until everyone that was going to get vaccinated actually got vaccinated that parents felt it was safe enough to return.
At our school, we had deaths among faculty, staff, and their families. Students lost family members. It was not a hoax, or a scandal, or anything people now say it was. It was a very large institution with a lot of stakeholders trying to cope with unknown risks.
James E Powell
@schrodingers_cat:
This has been the dominant ethos of the political press since Reagan.
randy khan
@Kay:
Not only everything you say, but of the two unions, the one that Randi W. heads is the smaller one (granted, representing teachers in New York City).
During the pandemic, the Times actually did some very thoughtful work on the school closure question, including an article on what a mess it was when Rhode Island’s Democratic governor tried to keep all of the state’s schools open. My personal conclusion from everything I read was that the schools had nothing but terrible choices – opening was dangerous and didn’t really work, closing and going remote hurt at-risk and poor children and their families a lot, etc., etc. But it also seemed true that teachers and administrators tried really hard to get the best outcomes for their students no matter what.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
He sort of wandered his freshman year in college in a way that was making me nervous- he’s in engineering but was expressing interest in all kinds of other areas – but he’s settled in now. He stuck with Spanish, too, which I was happy about. I’ll see him some this summer- he’s staying with me in Michigan and working at a state park.
My husband and I once tried to engage him and his GF about the pandemic. She’s from Wisconsin and also missed school for a long period. They just weren’t interested- polite, but not really answering other than “it was fine”. I guess it’s ancient history to them at this point.
Kay
@randy khan:
Agreed.
Princess
@Kay: Oh wait, it was the CPS that was their target?! I love the CPS. My kid went through CPS, which was so much better than the fancy private school we sent them to first. And they did great in college in a very difficult major, for which I give huge credit to their CPS teachers. What’s more, there are a lot of parents who love the CPS and side with their union. That’s we we just elected Brandon Johnson mayor — he was endorsed by the CPS and I think also used to be a teacher. And that’s obviously why the NYT is targeting Chicago because they usually pretend it doesn’t exist (I haven’t read the story).
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: There’s a whole different emotional dynamic when it’s your parent, I think. Similar to the way that many children will try unusual foods more willingly if it’s someone other than Mom and Dad offering them.
Also, for a long time I kept getting tripped up by saying things that I intended to be reassuring (“OK, this is not that complicated”), but that she took as insulting, or dismissive of her experience (“this is so easy, why don’t you already understand it?”)
Now that she’s in pre-calculus (and pretty on top of things generally), I find she’s more OK with my help.
Princess
@gene108: I was just thinking yesterday about the huge tents Dark Brandon ordered set up near the United Center in Chicago so that ordinary folks could get vaccinated. Thousands of people. Trump never would have done that; he’d cheerfully have watched us all die. Joe saved our lives. Can’t wait to vote for that guy and his VP again.
Redshift
@zhena gogolia:
Ah, but the beauty of it is that if people don’t know the meme, it’s just a campaign shirt where Biden has glowy eyes, so it still works.
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift: I used to be uneasy about the whole thing because portraying this or that person with evil glowing eyes, as an approving thing meaning “this person is powerful and virile and will fuck you up”, was mostly a thing done by nasty fascist-right types for a while. But appropriating it as a gag to cut them down, with a genial jolly-uncle fellow like Joe Biden, actually is pretty fun.
Lehrjet
@JAFD: had sat radio forever, good selection of music commercial free about 15 bucks a month and you can stream it from your devices so no complicated set up.
prostratedragon
@Princess: Reading these comments made me think precisely of the CTU and it’s recent, demonstrated ability to get out the vote for our own dark Brandon. Note: the AFT, of which Randi Weingarten is president was founded in Chicago. And Ms. Weingarten specifically was the stepmother whom that ignorant woman insulted recently.
Miss Bianca
@gene108: I lost a dear old acquaintance from my college acting days in the early days of the pandemic – he died in Brooklyn. The most horrible way possible – came home from the hospital, seemed to be getting better, and then died choking in bed at home. His poor wife!
Remembering how David died, and then just experiencing the callousness and brutality not just of Trump, but of all the right-wing choads around me here in Redneckistan who aped his empty, fact-free sloganeering on the pandemic, just made me so white-hot with rage.
I may have forgiven – just barely – those of my acquaintance who showed their entire asses on this subject, but I am never, ever forgetting.
Diceros bicornis
@Asparagus Aspersions: We’ll, wear it to Democrats Abroad voter registration events! We love to see it
Sister Golden Bear
@JoyceH:
Republicans have more projection than a multi-theater IMAX cineplex. They’re amoral, so they assume else is too.
Soprano2
@cmorenc: We had this happen at work with a story about sewage discharges from our bigger treatment plant. The reporter did an interview with the pretreatment supervisor about what happened, why it happened, and what we were doing to fix things. None of that made it into the final story, where they let the local head of the Sierra Club say unchallenged that we were deliberately discharging raw sewage into the creek. The reporter was so embarrassed by what his editor did that he called our supervisor to apologize. I encouraged our section head to write a letter to the paper protesting it, but they wouldn’t because they “didn’t want to pick a fight with the paper”. They defamed us deliberately, we should have picked a fight with them!
Chris T.
@Timill: Aren’t there too many words in that? Or is that what makes me “nimis popinquus ades”?
Timill
@Chris T.: The interwebs thinks it’s OK: “If you can read this bumper sticker, you are both well educated and much too close.”
I could cut “adfixum in obice” back to “signum”, but that might annoy Henry Beard, who wrote it.