Biden’s meeting with the big four congressional leaders — Kevin McCarthy, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell — will be at 4 pm on Tuesday in Oval. “They’ve got to do their job” on the debt limit, @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre says. pic.twitter.com/R1vqNgqbuz
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 8, 2023
Rep. Jeffries on Meet the Press: "They didn't produce a budget. What they did was produce a ransom note. That's what the 'default on America act' is. And effectively, what they're saying to the people is either you accept these dramatic cuts … or accept a catastrophic default" pic.twitter.com/0du9Ej4sBA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 7, 2023
===========
Get in, folks.
We’re going to lunch. pic.twitter.com/ehsgHuFW7J
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 5, 2023
Lunch break: @POTUS and @VP drop by local DC Mexican food spot Taqueria Habanero for Cinco de Mayo pic.twitter.com/za7glrnzlW
— Raquel Martin (@RaquelMartinTV) May 5, 2023
Today's job numbers are the latest proof—Democratic presidents deliver jobs! pic.twitter.com/GkUQUOSmXl
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 5, 2023
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Durbin on CNN connects the dots between Clarence Thomas's corruption and specific SCOTUS rulings pic.twitter.com/kzP7hnU6n4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 7, 2023
The committee is also asking three companies that facilitated Crow’s yacht, jet and lakeside resort travel for a list of guests who may have overlapped with Thomas’s stays.
— Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) May 9, 2023
… Judiciary Committee Chair Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and the committee’s 10 other Democrats signed on to the letter asking Crow to provide an itemized list of gifts worth more than $415 that he’s made to Thomas, any other justice or any justice’s family member, as well as a full list of lodging, transportation, real estate transactions and admission to any private clubs Crow may have provided.
The Judiciary Committee is now the second Senate committee to target Crow after ProPublica reported that the Republican donor invited Thomas on pricey vacations, bought his mother’s house, and provided Thomas’ grandnephew with private school tuition, most of which were not disclosed by the justice.
The Judiciary Committee also sent letters Monday to three companies associated with the Republican donor’s travels that facilitated the private resort, private jet and superyacht travel where Thomas has joined Crow, asking those companies to provide a list of other guests whose travel overlapped with Thomas’s or that of any other justice.
For example, the committee asked the company Topridge Holdings for a full list of guests who stayed at Camp Topridge — Crow’s private lakeside resort — while Thomas was there as a personal guest of Crow’s.
Supreme Court justices are required to disclose gifts of over $415, but the rules around gifts involving personal hospitality were murkier. The Judicial Conference, the courts’ policymaking body, recently changed disclosure rules to require justices and other federal judges to report more details of gifts, including free stays at hotels or hunting lodges, and clarified that a ride on a private jet, for example, must be reported…
All 11 of the committee’s Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — who’s been absent for months for health reasons — signed the letters, and none of the committee’s Republicans joined…
… [T]he cascade of unflattering reports about Thomas and some other justices’ undisclosed potential conflicts of interest has fueled calls for ethics reform as polls suggest that Americans have declining trust in the institution. A conservative judicial activist, for example, paid Thomas’s wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, The Washington Post reported last week.
The reports have also put pressure on Durbin to take a more aggressive stance in pushing for court reform. Late last month, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Crow to inform his committee whether Crow reported the gifts to Thomas on his taxes. The senator also said he would “explore using other tools at the committee’s disposal” to obtain the information if Crow did not respond by May 8. A spokesman for Wyden did not respond to questions Monday about whether the committee had received a response from Crow.
Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans said they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Supreme Court, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released late last month. In 2018, 59 percent said they had faith in the court.
On The Road – Dangerman – Point Sur Lighthouse (And Whale Watching, Wildflowers. and a Random Lighthouse Story)
Shalimar
Watched Joe Scarborough lie his ass off this morning and say the Southern Baptist churches he grew up in didn’t care about race. I’m a little younger than he is and grew up in the same churches. They didn’t care about race because all the churches in the area in the ’70s and ’80s were still segregated. There were no black people in Scarborough’s church.
Mousebumples
Good morning, everyone!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I wonder how the media would be treating it if the Ds did this under Trump and refused to raise the debt ceiling unless he undid his tax cuts, funded public universities, and put up a big beautiful welcome sign spanning the entire border.
Steeplejack
@Shalimar:
Totally agree, although I think there is a chance that Scarborough is just absolutely blind and clueless. He thinks there wasn’t any racism because he didn’t see any. All of those tasteful white people could afford to be “non-racist” on Sunday because, as you said, there weren’t any black people in their churches, and, besides, they left the racism for Monday-Saturday.
A few years ago Scarborough was going on about non-racism at the University of Alabama when he was there, particularly his fraternity. Hard eyeroll. I guarantee you that the only black people at his fraternity were the waitstaff at their formal dinners. And I guarantee that if you looked at the percentage of black students at Bama then (and probably now) it would not match the percentage of black people in Alabama.
P.S. Fuck Donny Deutsch for his bullshit warning against “woke-ism” and failing to connect with disaffected Trump voters. Clueless New York mook in his pinstripe mob-lawyer suit from the Joe Tacopina collection.
Steeplejack
@Mousebumples:
Good morning! 🙏 (Breathing into a paper bag after my rant above.)
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: It’s that old unmarked case. Whites-only identity politics isn’t “identity politics”, the old-boy network is “judging on merit”, and leaving Black people out is “not bringing race into it”.
Betty Cracker
Pleasantly surprised that Durbin forthrightly connected the dots between the Crow-Leo largesse and a catastrophic SCOTUS opinion Thomas joined. (I think Durbin is basically a decent guy but temperamentally unsuited to the JC chairman role right now — someone more aggressive like Whitehouse would be better.)
@Shalimar: Same here. My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and I got dragged to church every Sunday (and Jesus camp in the summers) until I was old enough to refuse. The churches were 100% white, and they set up schools in the 1970s explicitly to help congregants bypass public school desegregation.
I saw another outlandish claim about a post-racial past from some prominent person recently, can’t remember where. They said something like, “younger people won’t believe this, but back in the 1990s, Americans didn’t think about race.” No one should believe that because it’s a damn lie.
trnc
Leonard Leo, his role and his position at the Federalist Society should be named every time he is mentioned in corruption-related reporting.
Baud
@Mousebumples:
Good morning.
Shalimar
@Steeplejack: I also went to Alabama 2 years after Scarborough graduated. You’re right. Fraternities were still completely segregated. And the white fraternities and sororities controlled student politics, so that too was discriminatory.
Baud
@Shalimar:
Rich people don’t care about money either, until they see a threat to it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack: And a righteous rant it was
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Twas woke that shot up a Texas mall.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shalimar: My beloved Texas grandmother was Southern Baptist and never demonstrated the slightest bit of racism. Looking back with my 64 yo eyes, I think it was because she was afraid of my mother who wasn’t going to tolerate it. I say that because Grams did a few things that were racist, just not obviously so.
Baud
@trnc:
That’s like the arrangement I have with Cole.
prostratedragon
@Steeplejack: Church history used to be basic instruction in (ahem) some denominations. The entire reason for the SBC was a split over slavery, as summarized here:
OzarkHillbilly
I want some of whatever that person was smoking back in the ’90s.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Must be because I got some good sleep last night—six straight hours! Can’t remember the last time that happened.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
You took my sleep. I had a restless night.
Ken
@prostratedragon: As a general rule, if a U.S. Protestant denomination has the word “Southern” in its name, it was about slavery.
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Joe Tacopina collection…hehehe
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Hey, I had it coming! My usual is 3-4½ hours, augmented with a nap in the afternoon. Still trying to rebuild my sleep hygiene in the post-pandemic world.
Baud
Rodney King was 1991. That must have cured everything.
OverTwistWillie
@Shalimar:
He’s trying to convey the need for African-Americans to prop up dying congregations, and by extension the southern GOP.
Mousebumples
@Betty Cracker:
I was in grade school/high school in the 90s, and – knowing how sheltered this makes me sound – I didn’t think much/at all about race, outside of history/literature classes and the like.
Part of that was likely growing up in a very White, very conservative community. Part of it was likely that I wasn’t thinking as critically as I should have about circumstances.
Americans who were not then (and are not now) thinking critically about race aren’t thinking critically. Period.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’m trying to learn more (and listen more) and try to effect change where and when I can.
Baud
@OverTwistWillie:
Plenty of black churches in the south that white people can join.
H.E.Wolf
Good morning! Today I expect to complete my long-running GOTV volunteer project of updating 28,000 addresses for my state’s Democratic Party. I did about an hour a day, for 11 months.
I think the staffers may have thought: “harmless busywork”. Meanwhile, I thought: “28,000 additional voters/volunteers who’ll be reachable by the correct field organizers”… and I prioritized addresses in a flippable Congressional district, which did flip to D. Not saying there’s a direct correlation, but maybe it helped.
Small incremental changes are my favorite power tool. :-)
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@OzarkHillbilly: There were probably isolated pockets that were able to go through life in the 90s not thinking about race. If they were in an all-white neighborhood, school, or place of business and watching only low-conflict 90s television.
If your only exposure to black people was Family Matters, you might not know racism was a thing; except maybe one special episode about one uniquely awful individual.
Shalimar
@Baud: The black churches are also a lot more fun.
Baud
Like Joe Scarborough, I too miss Friends and Seinfeld.
Steeplejack
@H.E.Wolf:
Congratulations! A job well done.
Baud
@H.E.Wolf:
👍
Dorothy A. Winsor
@H.E.Wolf: What a great project. Thank you.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Willful blindness is a powerful tool of self delusion. I no doubt have forgotten most of the racist incidents I witnessed during the 90s but there are several that stick in my head. Maybe growing up in the 60s and 70s sensitized me to it because back then few people felt the need to hide it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shalimar: True dat.
kalakal
@H.E.Wolf: Congratulations. A vital but all too often overlooked task. Well done!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@OzarkHillbilly: Not a whole lot about it willful if you’re a child and deliberately isolated. Probably not true for Scarborough. But that was my experience.
Eta: Private Catholic school in Boston until I went to Boston Latin. Younger sister didn’t make any of the exam schools and our parents moved us to the burbs instead of letting her attend school with…the broader Boston populace.
Steeplejack
@Mousebumples:
It’s easy, or easier, to be non-racist, or to not see racism, when people of color are kept offstage, so to speak, so that the issue never comes up. I lived in Alabama (as a non-Southerner) through most of the ’70s and saw the phenomenon on a daily basis.
catclub
@Steeplejack:
That depends on whether you count scholarship football athletes as students.
OverTwistWillie
@Baud:
So an 8:30 a.m. sermon en español is a no go?
It’s rough out there for a southern Whig.
catclub
Also no one thought about race during the OJ trial. Except, “why did he get away with it because he had better lawyers than the DA? I thought only rich white folks could do that?”
RaflW
A conservative judicial activist, for example, paid Thomas’s wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork.
They know they’re doing corrupt acts. Likewise, Justice Thomas knew he needed to report these trips, but after the LA Times embarrassed him well over a decade ago, he just stopped reporting it. He knew, and he lied by omission.
It’s intolerable. And while I appreciate that Durbin is doing something, he’s been too slow and he’s shown far, far too much deference to decorum and fucking antiquated niceties that the GOP abandoned years ago. He’s bringing a sugar spoon to a bazooka fight.
Steeplejack
@catclub:
😹 Touché.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: That reminds me of the whole question of whether young people were scared of nuclear war in the 1980s. It was a weird situation, not like the 1960s phase of the Cold War. Some people were absolutely terrified of nuclear war (I was in this camp). Other people not only weren’t scared of nuclear war, they didn’t believe that the first group really existed–they thought it was just insincere political posturing.
Another Scott
How dare they publish unflattering reports!!11ONE
Grrr…,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Now I can add something positive to say about Durbin when I call Durbin today about the fucking blue slips. Dick Durbin is still operating in a different time when collegiality was reciprocal. When it was actually a real thing.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: Wow, I knew you were working on that, but that’s huge! That’s close to 350 hours!
Go you!
satby
Good morning everyone.
So I became aware last night that the guy who last year wanted to buy my business but not my farmers market booth saved himself some coin by just stealing my business name and selling his own newbie stuff. I never trademarked the name if my little hobby business so there’s nothing I can do about it, but jeez.
Mousebumples
@Steeplejack: Very true.
eclare
@satby:
What an SOB. Is he in the farmers’ market with you?
TS
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/09/environmentalists-urge-desantis-veto-radioactive-roads-bill/
If use of this waste is banned by the EPA – Can Florida legislation ignore that ban & use the material in road construction?
satby
@RaflW: there’s no penalty but impeachment to get him off the bench (assuming his taxes were correct) and there’s no possibility of impeachment with the Congress as it is. So other than what Durbin is already doing, what do you think he should be doing?
Steeplejack
@satby:
Goddamn. I hate shit like that.
Josie
@catclub:
I attended the University of Texas in the 60’s. It was amusing to me that the dorms were segregated until the football team started to add black athletes and give them scholarships. That meant that the black athletes had to live in athletic dorms with the other players. Voila- all dorms were suddenly integrated. Football in Texas is king.
satby
@eclare: no, he’s selling on FB as far as I can tell. And I taught the fucker how to make soap. Middle-aged, ostentatiously Xtian conservative white guy; bet that surprises you.
I intend this as my last year of selling or I’d make a big deal about it. I will be letting my customers know he co-opted my business name without my permission.
eclare
@TS:
That’s weird that it has been used in Canada and Europe, usually they are a lot more strict with chemicals than the US.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: OMG. I’d be incoherent with rage.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Late ’70s I went 6th thru 9th grades in the leafy south suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA, and lemme tell ya, it was far more segregated and racist than my grades 4 & 5 in Tulsa, OK.
And even there, our realtor ‘steered’ my parents to houses south of 31st street so that my brother would go to the ‘good’ Jr High.
But Upper St Clair, PA? Hoo boy. There was one mixed-race kid who was easily read as Black. In a H.S. of 1,900 students. They weren’t in my grade, but I gather it was rough for them.
(And yes, the town we moved to really was called Upper St Clair. Lilly white, plus east Asian kids with professional parents. The poor whites lived down the hill in Bridgeville. If a Hollywood script used these tropeish names, it’d seem too much.)
eclare
@satby:
Gawd how awful.
Eolirin
@satby: That’s not entirely true. If Thomas were to be arrested he functionally can’t serve either.
Investigations can be held at minium, with actual subpoenas, and if Thomas broke a law, referral to the DoJ is warranted. Also can start drafting ethics regulations and creating a push to get those passed, even if it’ll fail with this congress. It’s a decent plank to be running on in the 2024 elections. But we probably need Feinstein back to do anything and getting more judges through is our first priority.
Warblewarble
Meanwhile the relentless murder of Palestinian children continues in a silent world.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: A friend from my old Northern Virginia neighborhood came by Sunday and our conversation happened to get into voter outreach. Dan is near the end of an accounting career in Virginia Beach, and it turns out he was a volunteer for Representative Elaine Luria’s reelection campaign last year.
Dan mainly distributed literature and spoke to potential voters. His guidance was to go door to door in various neighborhoods, but the engagement rate was so low he tried a different tactic: working grocery store parking lots.
He ruled out the “upscale” Harris Teeters where he shops, reasoning that the customers were mostly Republicans; he would not persude them but instead would remind them about the election. So he chose the “downscale” Food Lions, and selected people who he “profiled” as likely Democrats. I thought it was an interesting approach. Dan was run off once by a store manager who told him, no soliciting.
I asked my friend if he thought Ms. Luria would go for a rematch with mow-Reprentative Kiggans next year, and he had not heard. We agreed that she has enough name recognition after serving two terms that she can wait until later this year. I hope she does run, but I also hope she is enjoying a nice summer off with her family.
satby
@Steeplejack: @Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, yeah, I’m annoyed. But (I mean it, really) this is my last year. And not the full year either.
The ironic thing is, I was always a bit embarrassed by what a stupid name it was. I made it as a placeholder while putting together my Etsy site, and it went live in the last design step so I just left it 😂
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: May all the karmic forces of the universe come down on him and smite his dreams.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I remember my grandfather saying, in the 1960’s, that if black people didn’t like America they should go back to Africa where they came from. When I was a kid I didn’t think much about race because my small town was lily-white, and Springfield was over 90% white too. I knew there was racism and it was wrong, but that’s about it.
Another Scott
@Eolirin:
I think Durbin has made the argument (on a radio interview segment I heard on NPR) that there’s little the Congress can do to force the Judicial branch to police itself. Maybe so.
One thing they can and should do is explicitly define “good behaviour”:
If Clarence and Ginni want to accept payment from outsiders and otherwise exhibit bad Behaviour, they should forfeit their Compensation from the people of the United States.
Grr…,
Scott.
James E Powell
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I don’t know how the media would have responded, but I would have loved it if the Ds had done some debt limit theater demanding the tax cuts be repealed.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I actually think Durbin is perfect. No one knows the procedural tricks and rules better than he. The Chair doesn’t have to be aggressive.
Elizabelle
@H.E.Wolf: That’s fantastic. I admire your daily discipline.
Baud
@satby:
Wow. How awful.
BlueGuitarist
Thanks AL for continuing attention to the Thomas Crow Affair!
satby
And that’s what the Senate Judiciary Committee is doing, investigating. So my statement on what Durbin is doing was accurate.
As I’m betting an IRS auditor may be investigating behind the scenes after these disclosures came to light.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: yep, my attitude.
@Baud: not awful, just annoying. And kinda sad really that someone felt they had to swipe my reputation to make their own side business a success. But he also got laid off last Friday from the job he planned to retire from, so he’ll need all the luck he can get.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: That’s of course nonsense though. Congress can explicitly set ethical standards and regulations for the court and control their jurisdiction, as well as defund them.
Now, if he meant this congress, sure. I don’t think McCarthy is going to be compelled to support even broadly popular legislation on this issue.
But congress, by the constitution, has significant power over the judiciary.
BlueGuitarist
@H.E.Wolf:
Awesome!
thank you for your service!
SFAW
@Baud:
Well, that explains a lot.
Eolirin
@satby: They’re not really, at least not yet. Sternly worded letters aren’t the same as subpoenas and proper hearings. But I think we need Feinstein back to get any of that moving correctly. It still has to happen, and we’ll see how far Durbin moves on it once that obstacle is removed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: In ’78 I got a job hauling drywall. The day came when my driver was promoted to the boomer truck (no more carrying 200# loads up the stairs for him!) and I was promoted to driver in his place. Problem was their was a young black man who had about a years seniority over me and the promotion should have been his.
I remember my boss saying he already had one black driver and he wasn’t gonna let anybody tell him he had to have 2. I also remember shrugging it off and thinking, “This is the world we live in.”
Not one of my prouder moments.
In the long run it didn’t make much difference. A couple weeks later I hit a trip step going up thru a sliding door. Almost lost all the fingers on my right hand, tore up the F-U finger pretty bad and it was never right again. My days of carrying 200# bundles of drywall were over.
I don’t know if the black guy got his much deserved promotion after I left but if not I hope he moved on to something better.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Ken
“Pay Ginni, but use a fake invoice and make sure her name isn’t on the paperwork” does have just a hint of tax fraud somewhere.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
SFAW
@Another Scott:
Just staking out a starting point for the negotiations.
satby
@Eolirin: “A Law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” With these words written by Chief Justice Marshall, the Supreme Court for the first time declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress and signed by the President.
Not just this Congress, but this SCOTUS.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! 🙏
Elizabelle
@satby: What if he cuts corners, though, and makes a bad batch of soap? (As in dangerous product.) Or starts non-performing? It’s your reputation, too. How do you protect yourself?
Facebook might be interested in his scam.
I do sympathize that he lost his job, but stealing from you is not the answer.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I remember feeling like racism was not a big issue in the 1980s at my high school, and I didn’t go to some all white high school either (although I am white) – but all the kids of whatever race seemed to get along at my high school. I think we were roughly 30% African American with a fairly substantial Hispanic contingent too.
That said I lived on the “white working class” side of town and heard casual racism from a lot of people’s mouths, especially from people who were sending their kids to the Catholic High School on that side of town, which basically existed so people wouldn’t have to send their kids to school with “those people”. I think that did reduce the level of racism at my school because the kids who would have been most racist, because their parents were racist, were filtered out of the student body and into the parochial school. Then I went to a small, liberal arts college and when I came out and went out into the world I sensed more racial conflict. I chalked it up to the increase in inner city gang violence that took off in the early ’90s.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: IMO, when radical Repubs are using every instrument and tradition to attack democracy, aggression is not only warranted, it’s required. But good on Durbin for connecting the dots in the video up top — that was appropriately aggressive.
EarthWindFire
They didn’t think about race so much that Bill Clinton was called the first black president…good times.//s
BlueGuitarist
@Mousebumples:
In 2012, the TX R Platform literally opposed teaching “critical thinking”
“We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that …have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-06-27/gop-opposes-critical-thinking/
RaflW
@satby: What Eolirin said, and while I realize that some of this might seem like style points, but Durbin is rhetorically way, way too accommodating of deference to SCOTUS. Take a g.d. blowtorch to Thomas’s actions.
I’m moreso angry about the blue slip bullshit, and while of course Drubin can’t force DiFi to fly coast to coast and wheel in to a committee hearing in a zippy chair to cast votes, our gridlock on approving judges to restock the benches below Scotus is making me very, very cranky about the whole shebang.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Is there a link where we can troll him with terrible reviews? ;-)
Scout211
Update on “Pink Beret” : She was charged with four federal counts for her role in the J6 insurrection and there is a warrant out for her arrest.
. . .
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Another Scott: This is an idea…but the definition, IMO, for “good behavior” could be drafted by the Executive Branch, namely the Justice Department. Offices within the Justice Department draft all those definitions of what constitutes fraud, ethical lapses, etc. for the various groups of federal employees. Why not for Supreme Court Justices?
PJ
@satby: Well, you can sue him (you can have trademark or service mark rights without it being registered), but if you are out of the business, it’s not going to be worth it.
Wapiti
@satby: Any chance you have written correspondence of offers to buy the business? Just in case he claims he had the name first and tries to push you out?
narya
@satby: we could go to his FB site and leave bad reviews . . . “I think a different person used to have this business name; their soap was SO much better.”
NotMax
TCM alert (all times Eastern). Sturgesfest!
Today:
8:00 p.m. – Sullivan’s Travels
9:45 p.m. – The Plam Beach Story
11:30 p.m. – The Lady Eve
.
Wednesday:
1:15 a.m. – Hail the Conquering Hero
3:15 a.m. – the Great McGinty
lowtechcyclist
Maybe it was because I was in a near-vacuum with respect to news for most of the 1990s (I’ve never been a TV-watcher, and Florence, SC and Bristol VA/TN had crappy newspapers), but my recollection is that if you were a white American, there were only occasional incidents (e.g. Rodney King) that brought race to your awareness, so most of the time you didn’t have to think of race at all, being on the side of the racial divide that wasn’t affected by the differences.
After all, we passed all those civil rights laws in the 1960s, and now everybody’s equal, right?
IMHO, what changed all that was cell phone cameras. Once people started recording the shit that cops were doing to black people who posed absolutely no threat, the day-to-day stuff that people of color have to put up with in our supposedly color-blind society also started getting discussed. If you’re white, you have to work a lot harder in 2023 to pretend all that isn’t there than you did in 1993 or even 2003.
John Roberts still managed to do that in 2013 though.
H.E.Wolf
Thanks for the kind comments on my “eat a mammoth, one bite at a time” shenanigans.
I had a lot of fun visualizing the different places around the state where people were moving from/to, and imagining the reasons why (college towns were a gimme). 28,000 virtual neighbors living their best lives!
Also, it was fun to be placing a GOTV banana peel for the Republicans to slip on. :)
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
Very good observation. A good friend of mine dated a Black guy for a few years quite a while back, and she bought into the “just do what the cops say and you’ll be fine” lie even though he said otherwise. Then the cell phone videos came out.
Citizen Alan
@satby: My intellectual property class was over 20 years ago,. But I do believe it is possible to maintain a trademark violation action even if you never formally registered the trademark. The fact that you used the mark in your business, assuming that the market self is distinctive enough, and combined with the fact that he actually sought to buy it before appropriating it, may be enough to pursue legal action. Talk to a lawyer with some IP experience.
satby
@Elizabelle: His stuff is labelled with my business name, but he sells under his own AFAICT. I’ll put a notice on my business FB page, which is dormant, and a sign on my booth. Word will get out, he’s just in Mishawaka, right next to S.Bend.
@Betty Cracker: I’m not willing to dox him, it’s on his personal page. But thanks 😉
Baud
@satby:
Never trust a Mishawakan.
H.E.Wolf
@Geminid:
Your friend is brilliant. Identifying *which* grocery stores would be best to reach Democratic voters is the stuff of GOTV legend!
Reminds me of Harry Truman’s pal, the chicken peddler (oldstyle farm-to-customer sales), who kept saying during the 1948 presidential campaign that polling numbers be damned, people on his routes were going to vote for Give ’em Hell Harry.
satby
@PJ: @Citizen Alan: appreciate the info.
satby
@Baud: INORITE??
jonas
@BlueGuitarist:
“Also, the people of Athens were right to kill Socrates…”
Good grief, they’re not even *pretending* not to be knuckle-dragging idiots these days.
satby
@Wapiti: I do, and I established mine online in 2014, so I have records going back 9+ years.
Appreciate all the kind thoughts folks. Thanks.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Mishawacko!
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
One minor quibble: lots of people genuinely did not think about it. They outsourced their thinking about it to their elected representatives, who ensured that invisible barriers were erected that prevented them from ever having to think about it. De facto segregation allowed a lot of people to maintain a fantasy that race didn’t affect their lives personally. It allowed them the self-concept that their lifestyle was not affected by race or privilege.
It’s really staggering to what degree many people really do not want to discuss or consider things they find unpleasant or might make them feel uncomfortable. MAGA is nothing but a fantasy, but fantasy is very powerful.
eclare
@H.E.Wolf:
I volunteered with a non-partisan voter registration group for the 2004 election. We set-up at grocery stores, and we were very selective about which grocery stores we worked at. The rich suburbs? Nope.
And to add to everyone else, great job on the data entry!
Elizabelle
@satby: Suppose at some point you wanted to use your business name and skills again. Say, perhaps, with refugee outreach and business development skills. You might want to teach some new residents how to run a home-based business and support their families.
Or to sell a line, in support of animal protection and rescue?
But: interloper has the name, and says it’s his business? Further, people are complaining, because he’s cutting corners and the stuff molds or is an inferior product.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Anti-CRT is the current manifestation.
Another Scott
@satby:
I’m sorry you’re going through that. :-(
USPTO.gov:
What’s the “particular geographic area” for the Internet??
NY-Trademark-Lawyer.com:
As usual, it’s messy. :-/ And even if you had registered with the USPTO, you’d have to do the expensive work to protect your trademark.
You could keep going as “The Original S———s, Since 19xx” if you wanted, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Hang in there!
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: What was he in, Kappa Alpha?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@OzarkHillbilly: @Betty Cracker:
Back in the 1990s, people in polite society didn’t talk directly about race. They didn’t need to. The racial barriers were in tact and understood. If they needed to discuss racial issues, they discussed it in code: crime, drug use, urban decay, etc.
Elizabelle
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Chicago!
Suzanne
@Baud: Abortion is also the current manifestation. Every time we say, “What about twelve-year-old girls who get raped by their fathers? What about terrible incompatible with life scenarios? What about instances where moms will die?”….much of the right wing covers their ears and goes LALALALALA!!! They just…. don’t want to think about it, so they don’t.
Climate change is also the current manifestation. We bring up evidence and terrible scenarios and suffering…. and they hear “IT MAKES ME FEEL BAD ABOUT MY TRUCK”, so they decide it’s bullshit, and they don’t think about it.
Never underestimate how much people DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: The 1990s were when the OJ Simpson case, the Rodney King beating, the South Central LA riots and the rise of the militia movement happened. Race was explicitly top of mind, more so than in the 2000s.
BlueGuitarist
@Geminid:
your friend is onto something!
There’s also a Wisconsin group called Supermarket Legends
link to article:
https://boltsmag.org/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-milwaukee-organizing/
Ohio Mom
@H.E.Wolf: Wow! And standing ovation!
Kristine
@satby: Talk about pencil-dick moves. 🤬
OzarkHillbilly
@jonas: Everything they need to know they learned in Bible studies.
ArchTeryx
I have to say, even though I grew up on the far South Side of Chicago in the 1980s, race wasn’t just AN issue, it was the issue. They enforced segregation with all the brutality of Jim Crow, even without the Jim Crow legal framework. My suburb was lily white, and I was constantly told to stay away from the parts of town that hosted black people. That didn’t crack until I went to an integrated arcade. Black and white? Didn’t matter. Long as you followed the etiquette, it was all cool, and one quarter was good as the next.
That made an impression that never left me, no matter how much racial bigotry was driven into me. But it left scars that I still work to overcome. Poor minority areas are still “scary” to me.
A lifetime of training doesn’t leave overnight. But I’m trying.
Matt McIrvin
(In hindsight, Rodney King was a real harbinger of things to come. Police had been doing that crap since forever but this time, there was a guy with a portable camcorder there. Eventually everyone would be carrying a camcorder around in their pocket.)
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: But race was primarily talked about in the context of crime. It wasn’t really talked about in any other way, certainly not in the context of health or property values or education or sharing public space or religion or really anything else. And it was all distant and over there.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Part of me is sympathetic because thinking about it means they have to choose a way forward and many of them rightly do not trust themselves that they won’t choose to become monsters.
Frankensteinbeck
@Suzanne:
It takes more effort to think about it than to ignore it and go on believing what they want to believe. That’s just how the brain works. Psychologists call it rationalization, Colbert called it truthiness, but it is the default way the brain operates that we have to learn to overcome. Overcoming it might threaten conservatives’ precious self-righteous hate fix, so they don’t even try.
Jackie
I fully support this endeavor!
““A far-right faction that has gained clout in the Georgia GOP wants to give the state party new powers to block candidates from qualifying to run as Republicans if they’re deemed to be insufficiently conservative or a ‘traitor’ to the party,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“The rule change is being championed by leaders of the Georgia Republican Assembly, a conservative faction that has vilified Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other Republicans who rejected Donald Trump’s demands to overturn his election defeat.”
“Under the proposed rule change, the Georgia GOP convention could vote to prevent a political candidate from qualifying to run as a Republican in the next election, giving the state party’s 1,500 or so delegates authority to pick favorites in top races.””
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: We were very much taught in school that racism had been fixed by the civil-rights movement back in the 1950s and 60s.
I’d personally absorbed a lot of liberal talk to the contrary but when I expressed this, sometimes untactfully, I got a lot of pushback. And I didn’t really, viscerally understand how bad it was either–I’d also grown up in a pretty de facto segregated environment and liberal guilt expressed itself in unease around Black people, in a really unhelpful way.
Baud
@Jackie:
It’s so refreshing to see them suppressing their own voters for once.
gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: White women were taught to be afraid of black men. Actually to be afraid of a lot of things but especially black men, from childhood. It’s really hard to overcome and it’s not as simple as white people are better or something.
A lot of nice older white women who treated black people they knew and met face to face nicely were much more fearful after dark or of black men just around the neighborhood. I think it was taught by their men to control them, keep them home, not going out to get jobs or have fun, because that seemed to be the effect. Of course it wasn’t good for black Americans, but it reflects back and was not good for American white women either. Stick together, don’t let the users use us.
Suzanne
@Baud:
No, they all think that they would unquestionably do The Right Thing!!! But doing the right thing is hard, and it requires sacrifice, so they avoid feeling bad about themselves by refusing to entertain any scenario in which they would need to make any difficult choice.
OzarkHillbilly
I distinctly remember it being discussed in all those ways. If you were a child, maybe you didn’t hear it but as a 30+ yo man I did.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
A good point, but so often they then do the monstrous things they feel like doing, and then refuse to think about any argument that they’re wrong.
Paul in KY
@Ken: That’s a ‘pro tip’ there.
Steeplejack
@Paul in KY:
Huh. The Google says that Scarborough pledged Pi Kappa Phi but quit shortly thereafter to start a rock band instead. But my memory is clear that he was really talking up his fraternity experience on the air a few years ago.
As a side note, Scarborough’s Wikipedia page is a hilarious dive into just how right-wing he was back in Congress (1995-2001). Some contributor/editor has laid it out in excruciating detail. Among other things, he signed Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, got a 95% career rating from the American Conservative Union and voted to eliminate the Department of Education and to withdraw from the United Nations. And of course he voted to impeach Bill Clinton. What a journey he’s had!
I take Scarborough’s current positions at face value, but when he starts rhapsodizing about his past and the good old days of Ronald Reagan . . . fuhgeddaboudit.
Steve in the ATL
@Geminid:
I don’t think you needed the quotation marks—downscale is their whole brand!
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I went to a college named after Robert E. Lee that was 97% white and it was the most diverse school I’d ever attended. Looking back on it all years later, I realized that I had an excellent academic education but was woefully unprepared for life in the real world.
@satby:
Yeah, in retrospect “Soaps by Omnes” was a poor choice.
gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh I can believe he wasn’t thinking about race, and makes the mistake that means nobody was. People do that all the time. Some people were, others weren’t. Clinton was called the “first black President” because he acted so aware of black issues at the time. So He was thinking about it, and others noticed.
A lot of people don’t pay as much attention to any political issue when they are young. They grow up and many grow more interested, just because life happens to them. I know I pay more attention than I used to. That doesn’t actually mean that the rest of America has ever been in the same place I am.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
That’s only a boon to Dems if elections in GA remain free and fair so the presumably more extreme GOP candidates are rejected in generals.
Jackie
@Baud: May other Red States take heed and follow!🤞🏻🤞🏻
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: @Matt McIrvin:
Exactly. And again, urban decay, the failures of the great society projects, etc.. all of those were ways of being disparaging of black people without explicity talking about race. It was just understood.
Paul in KY
@TS: Good campaign commercial there, if it comes to that.
Suzanne
@gvg:
Clinton was called “first black President” because his early life experience had been similar to that of many black families…. his dad was gone and his early life was in poverty.
eclare
@Steeplejack:
I don’t remember Pi Kappa Phi as having a bad rep when I was in college, unlike KA or Same Assholes Everywhere (SAE).
PST
There is a remarkable article — almost a book, really — on The Bulwark today by Will Saletan entitled The Corruption of Lindsey Graham. I realize that at first glance it might seem that nothing is less remarkable. We all know Graham and how incredibly low he’s sunk. This is different, though, because over the course of more than 100 pages the author traces step by step the process by which an authoritarian coopts his critics. He’s not interested in Graham specifically, except that Graham is such an incontinent blabbermouth that each step can be documented. Others have trod the same path more quietly:
Everything Saletan says is linked to a source. A remarkable amount of work went into it. Most of the time I’m content to say “they’re all scum” and leave it like that. But a deeper understanding is helpful, and this provides it. It’s a little like reading Evans’s The Coming of the Third Reich in that it shows how traditional elites continue to think that they’re really running the show until they find themselves running scared instead.
cain
They didn’t think about race because black folks were still segregated and you only knew anything about them through movies.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne:
“He wasn’t one of us. Did not belong where he got. It wasn’t even his house!”
— the Sally Quinn/Maureen Dowd press industrial complex
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, they were. And if we’re to be honest they still are in some circles.
All of which has very little bearing on my Grams’ racism. For starters, my maternal grandparents were quite wealthy. If Grams saw a black man it was when he was tending their yard or busing tables at the country club. Black women were for doing laundry, dishes, the sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, and cooking. And they better not get uppity, if they did they were never seen again, no matter how beloved by Grams’ grandchildren.
cain
@Shalimar: That’s because the lives outside was pretty damn challenging! I can imagine that Church was a safe space.
Elizabelle
@PST: Wow. Thank you. Will check that out.
I remember Lindsey Graham maybe around 2011 saying the Tea Party would peter out. Maybe wishful thinking, since he would be up against them for his Senate seat in a few years.** It was a FTF NY Times magazine profile, if memory serves.
I remember when he was a more decent guy. Sad!
**. He prevailed, because numerous of the little darlings ran against him. Had he been up against one ….
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: Good point on cell phone cameras, etc.
Steeplejack
@eclare:
They were all segregated back in the day. They could still be “nice.”
Amir Khalid
News from Malaysia: Tony Jay’s not-favourite band Coldplay have announced they will play a show at KL’s Bukit Jalil Stadium this November.
I have begun researching Irish girls’ names for another cat. (Yes, you guys have persuaded me to fill what Tom Levenson has identified as the cat-shaped hole in my heart.) So far, I like Aoife, Eithne, Sinead, Siobhan, and the relatively modern Saoirse.
Elizabelle
@PST: Also, I will not be surprised if Lindsey Graham ends up, some day, a suicide. Seems to be a hollow little man. Who might be self-aware enough to know how far he has fallen.
Steve in the ATL
@Steeplejack: I believe he’s referring to the fact that the Kappa Alpha Order (not the same as the Kappa Alpha Fraternity) was famously (infamously?) founded by one Robert E. Lee when he was president of Washington College (subsequently remained Washington and Lee University after his death) in the late 1860s.
@eclare: SAE at Alabama was so notorious that people left it off of their resumes in the 80s and early 90s so they could get jobs!
Matt McIrvin
@cain:
Still ARE, maybe even more so than then, but now they’re on the Internet and that’s another avenue for white people to hear them tell their own stories unfiltered. Also some of the pop-culture depictions have gotten a little more sophisticated.
Paul in KY
@jonas: ‘challenging a student’s fixed beliefs’. Jesus Christ!!! Idiotocracy is coming and sooner than the movie had it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
Sally Quinn’s wiki page is a hoot:
She had little experience before being hired to the WaPo:
Bradlee seriously called Quinn up after reports of her “pajama party” to celebrate Goldwater’s election? WTF?
eclare
@Steeplejack:
I know, I was just talking about their rep among students.
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid: Sinead has a ring to it.
eclare
@Amir Khalid:
Happy news! Find your cat and see which one fits.
And I am with TonyJay on Coldplay.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL:
Omniclean would have been so much better.
cain
@Another Scott: He also seems to believe that about the Senate, eh? Since apparently there is nothing to be done with blue whateverthefuckitis and other nonsense that GOP do.
eclare
@Steve in the ATL:
Ha!
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: That specific complaint goes back to the 1970s at least, the moment schools started trying to push things like “critical thinking” and “values clarification”.
Authoritarian parenting is an old, old thing, older than the alternatives, and the idea that Dad and maybe Mom should have a totalitarian level of control over a child’s thoughts and beliefs is absolutely natural to conservatives. It comes through even in things like the freakouts over changes to the math curriculum: if your kid is taught a mathematical fact you can’t understand, that’s a threat to your authority.
Paul in KY
@Jackie: Please proceed, whackjobs.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: all good names, any of which will be mangled brutally by the front desk person at your veterinarian’s office
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): guarantee she never set foot in or near the Pinpoint (pronounced “pin-pint”) section of Savannah where Clarence Thomas grew up
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s actually quite good! When you get disbarred you should get a job coming up with names for new pharmaceuticals—drug companies have gotten terrible at it.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: Sort of a joke as Kappa Alpha or ‘KA’ are the douches that dress up in confederate uniforms and crap like that.
I remember them from my UK days.
UncleEbeneezer
@OzarkHillbilly: I was in college from ’92-’96 in Delaware. We had a fraternity (KA) that still wanted to fly the Dixie Swastika flag. We had the KKK march through downtown Newark. White dudes telling N-word jokes was very commonplace in my dorms. I had a redneck roommate (assigned not chosen) on the football team who bragged about him and his boys going around beating up Black and LGBTQ people for fun at the Delaware shore. Then I moved to Philly in ’96 and the racism wasn’t much less in the predominantly Italian-American suburbs where I lived.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Amir Khalid:
Glad to hear the happy news! I vote for Sinead!
eclare
@Paul in KY:
IIRC KA at UT had a replica cannon in its front yard.
Amir Khalid
It is clear, even to someone on the other side of the planet like me, that anyone who maintains that race was not an issue in 1990s America is either lying or being willfully very blind.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid:
I vote for Subaru.
Elizabelle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yikes.
That said, I really enjoyed her Style section articles at the time. Quinn was a lively writer. I wonder how they stand up, now.
The WaPost was a great paper. The Kay Graham as publisher days, and Ben Bradlee was a good editor. Marty Baron was a good editor.
They have a Bezos weasel there now. And the editorial page editor is a jackass, too. (In that case, in fairess, he was following Fred Hyatt, though.)
Paul in KY
@eclare: I had a bunch of people from my town that were in SAE. Serious partiers all. They tore up that frat house so bad one time that their chapter was defuncted for a couple of years by the national group.
Lot of stereotypical dudebros there. At least in my time at UK, Sigma Chi and DTD had a higher percentage of asswipes.
Edit: the Pikes also had a bunch of shitheels, but nobody cared, as it was Pikes…
Manyakitty
@satby: OMG that is rage-inducing. W. T. A. F.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid:
@eclare: I’m not a fan of Coldplay either, but Chris Martin was freaking awesome on that episode of “Modern Family”!
PJ
@Amir Khalid: “Saoirse”, as you probably know, means freedom. I think it’s only recently that people have started naming their children with it.
Steeplejack
@Steve in the ATL:
Kappa Alpha fraternity was plenty racist in their own right. At Mizzou in the early ’70s their house was often decorated with a rebel flag, and they had an antebellum ball every year with hoop-skirted belles and Confederate uniforms. But I’m sure everything is better now.
ETA: Twenty seconds on Google. Kappa Alpha at Millsaps College—in the 1990s.
Jeffro
@Geminid: I hear you about your friend and I probably would have done the same thing re: Harris Teeter & Food Lion…except I can see reasons to hit HT (more college-educated/higher-income shoppers) and avoid FL (more folks w/o college degrees). So…hit ALL the grocery stores! =)
j/k and kudos to your friend for doing the work!
schrodingers_cat
Exciting news: I can has a rescue kitty. He is currently hiding under the bed. Looks like a mini-version of the late great boss kitteh.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: Alas. Had to go with KA cuz KKK was already taken.
Baud
I have zero idea if this is accurate, but if it is, it is interesting.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: I have never seen Coldplay play. Would like to. Think they do ‘Anthemic Rock’ pretty well. Saw film of a concert they did down in Brazil several years ago and I wish I’d been at that one.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
👍
Lucky kitty.
eclare
@PJ:
I didn’t know that! Saoirse Ronan is a great actress.
UncleEbeneezer
@OzarkHillbilly: My extremely racist Grandpa was definitely giving regular rants about those people ruining property values and schools in the 90’s before he died. His house was just a block away from a subsidized housing project and he made damn sure to mention it at every opportunity.
Jackie
@Amir Khalid: Your future kitty will tell you her name 😊
PST
@Elizabelle: Funny, but as I read the piece I could not help but think that had my character been flayed in such exhaustive detail I might consider taking the revolver out of the drawer. I don’t think Graham will, however. He’s shameless.
Amir Khalid
@Steve in the ATL:
Irish girls’ names — boys’ names too — are actually quite easy to pronounce. It’s just the spelling that’s tricky.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
Congratulations!
Paul in KY
@Steve in the ATL: Was talking about the douches that liked dressing up as confederates and their women as ‘southern belles’. Yick.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Shalimar:
In the Protestant churches I’ve attended, they are typically 95% white and people are constantly fretting “how can we get more black people to attend our church?”
I remember somebody once reporting on a trip south, where someone asked them in casual conversation, “how do you PREVENT black people from coming to your church?”
Steeplejack
@Paul in KY:
Believe me, I got it.
Juju
@satby: Add The Original to your business name. That could distinguish your business from the copycat.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Feel sad for kids raised by loser, weirdos like that.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: well played
@Paul in KY: @Steeplejack: as I recall, the KA Order had (and maybe still has) an annual North and South party where they dress up as civil war soldiers. At the chapters I was familiar with, the members of southern descent dressed in confederate uniforms and those of northern descent in union ones. During my four years at W&L I remember seeing *one* guy dressed in blue. We had loads of guys from NY, CT, PA and so on but they tended not to pledge KA. I would expect that it was (and is) hard to find any Yankees at Millsaps.
Soprano2
@gvg: Actually, I’d say it was simpler – I was taught to be afraid of all strange men, from a young age. I guess the thinking was it would keep me safe from being raped if I knew to stay away from any man I didn’t know. I take your point though, I think stressing the scariness of black men was as much to keep white girls and women from wanting to date them. I watch “The Flash” (guilty pleasure, so sue me), and there are two interracial relationships between main characters that are treated in a no big deal matter. I grew up during the 1960’s, when showing anything interracial was controversial, so it still amazes me how much that at least has changed on TV.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Congratulations!
Paul in KY
@eclare: So did the one at UK! Maybe the national group sprang for one or it was given by alumni or something.
Steve in the ATL
@Juju: worked for Ray’s Pizza in New York!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@PJ:
We have an Irish friend whose LAST name is Saoirse. Which is why I know how to pronounce that particular word. Still can’t figure out “Slainte”.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: The authoritarian model was the norm where/when I grew up. I realized even as a little kid that my upbringing was weird compared to normal people’s. Simpler and less numerous rules, fewer forced rites of passage, no religious indoctrination, no spankings at all.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Lucky kitty!
Soon to be the subject of many colorful artworks.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Congrats! Hope he has a wonderful life with you.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: I am thourough :-)
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
This was absolutely my experience. My mother and my grandmother were both assaulted by white men.
Paul in KY
@Steve in the ATL: At my time at UK (late 70s – early 80s) I never saw a soul dressed up as a Union soldier. Maybe at the KA chapter at UM?
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: I am not a fan of hard to spell names from a little spoken language (in your home country). Mainly as a kindness to clinic staff. Could also be hard to pull up the pet’s record during an emergency.
But it is a cool idea to give little cat a name with a history.
Maybe (example) Saoirse at home, and Shursha on her clinic records?
Paul in KY
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: In Kentucky, that would be ‘Slant-tee’ like a tee shirt you wear sorta at an angle.
Villago Delenda Est
Qevin should be immediately shipped to the Arctic and dropped on an ice floe near hungry polar bears.
Manyakitty
@Amir Khalid: Sinead.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: I got spanked, at times. Most of the time deserved it. Other than that, my parents were cool and not religious weirdos in any way.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
Congrats!
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Interracial relationships being depicted as no big deal in commercials is still a huge berzerk button for a lot of people. (The objection is often that it seems “forced”, unnatural, like this doesn’t happen in real life.) I recall that as only becoming common in the 2000s and 2010s, quite recently in historical terms.
You’d see them sometimes in movies before that, and back in the 1970s it was a thing for Norman Lear shows that treated them as a provocative topic for discussion and jokes about racism.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Credit where due, Liz Cheney put (PAC) money where mouth is
OzarkHillbilly
@UncleEbeneezer: I was living on the South Side of STL in the ’90s, had been since ’79. Had watched it go from all white to… Something less, 70/30? Race was a subject much groused about by many whites. You know, the city is going to hell.
Here it is, 2023 and the city is still going to hell. The murder rate is the worst in the country! Crime is rampant! Same as it ever was.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Not inspired by another language you speak?
Adele
Astrid
Brunhilde
Brigitte
Gretel
ida
Layla
Lena
Ludmila
Marlene
Sibylle
Silke
Ursula
Valentina
Winola
:)
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Whee!
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Great!
Villago Delenda Est
This is why the “Moral Majority” was formed. Jimmy Carter had the IRS look into this nonsense, and that’s what set vile shitstain Jerry Falwell Sr. off. The only reason he and the rest took up the forced-birth position was to form an alliance of convenience with reactionary Catholics.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: Oh Brunhilde you’re so wovely!
Yes I know it I can’t help it!
Spanky
@Steve in the ATL:
Truth. If Amir wanted to use a really Irish name, it’d be “Mary”.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Advertising in commercials is almost always aspirational. Not just reflecting what is, but also what is something worthy of esteem/admiration — like you will be if you buy that Mercedes or drink that Coke! It bothers a lot of assholes when non-white, non-skinny, non-conventionally attractive, etc etc etc, people are depicted in aspirational ways.
Miss Bianca
@gvg:
It was taught to me by my mother. My father didn’t directly pass on racist “FEAR BLACK MEN!11!” talk, but my mother did *constantly*. Yeah, it’s taken a lot to dismantle the master’s house in my head. I don’t know if the work will ever be completely done, but man…I’ve spent a lifetime trying. :(
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
Bezos pledged to leave the WaPo independent when Amazon purchased it. Say it ain’t so that was a lie?
Her career was before my time, so I’ll take your word for it. She seems to me like a very shallow person though
@Steve in the ATL:
Probably not. But I’m sure she invited him to her famous DC parties after he became a Justice
PST
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve always figured that advertisers are balancing their need to capture eyeballs with their desire to not offend. They may have decided that interracial couples are generally accepted but still rare enough that some viewers who would otherwise tune out an ad might take notice, even if only subconsciously, and therefore watch, but wouldn’t be turned off.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: If you look at the words of Conservatives in the 50’s-60’s during the White-lash to Brown Vs BOE, you definitely see a regular focus on fears of miscegenation. Fears that: 1.) white girls would be victimized by black boys, 2.) white boys would be seduced by black jezebels, 3.) white girls would be corrupted into harlots by black girlfriends and even 4.) pollution of the White Race™/Great Replacement worries about birthrates. Conservative organizations and white people spread this shit all over letters-to-editors, pamphlets etc. Mothers Of Massive Resistance by Elizabeth McRae Gillespie has lots of citations.
Jeffro
@Jackie: amazing.
GA is one of a few states where the less-insane Rs are working to build parallel fundraising and GOTV structures, because the nutjobs have taken over the actual party.
I think we’ll see the not-trumpers turn into the Freedom Party before too much longer. The Qnuts can have the fetid carcass of a once-proud GOP all to themselves.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
“No one should believe that because it’s a damn lie.”
I recall that the elementary school I went to in the 50s had zero black kids in it. Because no one would rent or sell a house in that part of town to anyone any other shade than pasty white. But there was only one junior high and high school and that’s when I found out that the town had black and brown people living in it. This is a town in Los Angeles county, the 4th ever incorporated city in the county. Racism was not just southern state bullshit. It may not have been everywhere but it was very prevalent.
Steve in the ATL
@PST:
And for decades to come business schools will be using Bud Light as a case study in how not to handle it!
NotMax
Honestly, people, it’s not exactly breaking news of some sort that Joe Scarborough is a clueless idiot.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus:
Look at Oregon’s origin story!
Amir Khalid
@Spanky:
Mary would have to be Gaelicised to Moira or at least Molly.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: How could you not include the near ubiquitous Petra?
Manyakitty
@schrodingers_cat: Yayyyyyy!!!! So happy for you!!! 😻😻😻😻😻
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
I remember noticing this in the 2010s especially, not so much the 2000s. I remember same-race couples were much more common then. I’ve even seen recent ads featuring gay couples in advertising in the last few years. Signs of some progress
Spanky
@Steve in the ATL: “Gentlemen, this beer is shit. How do we kill it off without seeming like we killed it off?”
Fictional, of course. Beer execs don’t care if their beer is shit if it sells.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
I guess the Trump years made people forget
Geminid
@Jeffro: The political demography of upscale grocery stores probably varies between Charlottesville and Virginia Beach. Both communities have a number of Black Democrats though, and they are more likely to be found shopping at Food Lion.
When I lived in the Valley I often shopped at the Food Lion in Stuart’s Draft. I’d sometimes shop at the Charlottesville Wegman’s, and one time I looked around and thought, “These people are bigger!” That made me want to survey both stores with some device that measured people’s height and see if this was true.
The Stuart’s Draft Food Lion also has the biggest selection of snuff I’ve ever seen.
Elizabelle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Bezos’ hires for Executive Editor (Sally Buzbee) and Editorial Page Editor (David Shipley) are appalling bothsiderism jackholes.
Buzbee from AP; Shipley from Bloomberg.
As an example: gift link below to this ridiculous WaPost Editorial Board opinion.
You will want to read it for the reader commenters (sort by “Most liked). WaPost readers are a nation of jackals. They know what a shit show this op ed is.
I think Buzbee’s brand is to drive “reader engagement”, even if it’s readers telling you the piece is insane and laughing at you for publishing it. That accounts for a lot of David Brooks’ readers at the NYT, too.
That said, it is dangerous to put up all the “Biden is too old! And he is checked out!” and “Kamala Harris is a nightmare!” headlines and articles, even if the article itself is a bit more nuanced. The headlines are what do the harm.
These fuckers are running the Emails Emails Emails play again. I despise them for being so selfish.
I’ve also noticed the FTF NY Times is not opening as many articles to reader comments, and none of the hot button ones. Their new editor (whose daddy helped found Staples) is an elitist asshole too.
GIFT LINK TO A SHIT SHOW OPINION PIECE:
THE POST’S VIEW
Opinion
Biden no longer does press conferences. That’s not acceptable.
Sort reader comments by “Most liked.” They’re telling the Post Biden is doing his job, and why put up with the gotcha questions from the press corpse?
Suzanne
@PST:
They’re also very conscious about to whom they are speaking. They are always targeting specific people and catering to those people’s tastes and expectations. There are very few brands that really welcome everyone (they’ll take your money, of course, but you’re not “core customer”). Exclusivity drives a lot of desire, so when everyone can access something, the brand loses cachet. And especially in fashion, if some groups get into something, other people don’t want it.
If someone is offended by seeing something in an ad, they can relax, because the advertiser doesn’t really want your money.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Far from Irish but have always been partial to Sacajawea* or Theodosia** for felines of the female bent.
*historical explanation unnecessary
**in honor of Theodosia Goodman, a.k.a Theda Bara, the original movie vamp
.
Quiltingfool
@Shalimar: The black churches are also a lot more fun.
Awesome, soul-lifting music! Powerful sermons! Beautiful clothing!
Honestly, when white churches deemed it okay to attend services wearing clothing best left to yard work, well, I thought it disrespectful. And I don’t want to hear about poor people can’t afford church clothes. When I was a child (older than dirt, I am!) you had a church dress – only to be worn to church. Easter was a time to get a fancy church dress, with a scratchy petticoat to pouf out the skirt.
I’m probably in the minority here, but dressing nicely for occasions like church, graduations, funerals and weddings is important to me – it shows respect.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
That’s no fun.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: I’ve been interested to see an ad for Estée Lauder foundation makeup that streams on Amazon Prime.
Yes, lots of beautiful young women of color, as expected. It’s a big deal to have a lot of foundation shades. And: a young man, too. Who is then shown holding hands with another young man.**
I was like “that’s cool. And very forward thinking; another way to grow the brand.”
Funny thing is, Estee Lauder was pretty much our mothers’ cosmetics brand. So they def need new customers.
** Obviously, either could be nonbinary. But they are attired as young men.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Sounds too much to Anglo attuned ears like a chain of cut-price filling stations.
;)
Jackie
@Matt McIrvin: Who could forget Archie Bunker’s expression when the character played by Sammy Davis Jr gave him a big smackaroo! And the episode when Archie needed a blood transfusion and learned the blood came from a distinguished Black Britain! 😂 Norman Lear was a trailblazer!
My Dad absolutely loved All in the Family. He knew several Archies and always used humor to “educate them” in much the same way Lear did.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: See, this is what gives me some hope in our current fucked-up media environment. Sounds like a sizeable group of their readers are not buying the bullshit, no matter how hard or frantically it’s being pushed at them
ETA: “Red wave”. Remember the ooga-booga, sure-to-come-because-INEVITABLE-that’s-why! RED WAVE so eagerly flogged by the media? And their collective Tucker Carlson-stupid-face look when it didn’t actually happen? Not that many of them took the opportunity to muse, “you know, what if we ARE as full of shit as our readers seem to think?”
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Yeah. Understood.
I am thrilled you are getting a little cat companion. She can have nineteen syllables, if you like.
eclare
@Quiltingfool:
I agree with your assessment of Black churches vs White and your opinion about dressing for respect. I also got a new dress every Easter.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Still better than the Reputation Laundering Service for despicable white women aka NYT.
Yesterday there was a puff piece on the Theranos woman, today its Nancy Mace.
Geminid
@Quiltingfool: My late friend Chris grew up in a Black church; in fact his father was the pastor. Once a high school friend, a white guy, invited Chris to attend services at his church, and Chris accepted.
It was different from what Chris was used to. He remembered thinking, about ten minutes into the service, “I wonder when they’re gonna bring in the casket.”
cmorenc
@Shalimar:
Having grown up in the 1960s attending a Methodist church in a small town in southeastern North Carolina, I understand how Scarborough’s statement that churches didn’t care about race was correct – if you substitute “willfully oblivious” instead of “didn’t care”. Race was simply outside the scope of issues most southern Protestant churches with white congregations took on at all, nor did they see any need for the church to get involved. It was vanishingly rare in most southern towns for any blacks to seek to join or attend white churches. Most preachers for white congregations shied away from any hot-button issues beyond salvation and extracting everyday sorts of moral homilies from scripture.
What was also true is that racism was deeply baked into the fiber of the southern communities white protestant churches drew their congregations from – but white churches weren’t often presented with confrontations that forced race as an issue churches needed to deal with. Instead, most carried on willfully oblivious to the racism many congregants carried outside the church.
Bill
@MomSense: so what is he going to do when crow and his gop cronies ignore his “request” for info ? Just let it go ?
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: And I wonder if that is why the FTF NY Times has cut the reader comments back? Honestly, they were the only thing worth reading with some of the propaganda that paper puts out. You got a sense of “I’m not the only one who sees this article is full of shit.”
I speak of the political articles. You don’t see that in the other sections that I read.
Could be they are having problems with their commenting software. Could be not, too.
The WaPost’s story on the Allen outlet mall shooter attracted over 28,000 reader comments. And now, I cannot easily find it on a search.
At the time, the FTF NY Times did not have its stories open to comments, at least when I checked.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: You know, on Sunday, the Elizabeth Holmes Theranos felon story was one of the few that allowed reader comments.
And all the top comments deplored Holmes, and many scolded the FTF NY Times for getting taken in by her latest bid for publicity. I scrolled through dozens; did not see any that were complimentary to Holmes, and lots criticized the Times for running the story.
Reputation laundering that was seen through. For sure.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: We were watching HGTV last night. I noticed on “Love It or List It” with a Black couple, they referred to the “Primary” bedroom. Later, on House Hunters they were in Tampa with a Black couple. She didn’t want to spend over $1M. He wanted the budget to be $1.5M.
It’s good to see diversity and normal looking normal successful people who aren’t so white and skinny on these shows.
Then, they showed promos for their new show “Renovation Wild” with an older white couple apparently renovating some safari camp in Zambia… :-/
There’s still a ways to go.
But incremental progress is good and the best way for progress to last (though the pace is frustrating quite often)…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jackie
@Ruckus: My Dad became a realtor/broker in the early ‘60s and was proud to advertise he was a realtor for all colors and ethnicities. This was in southern WA, where one of the towns had a sign stating no Negros allowed past dusk.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Schrödinger’s cat’s cat!
Miss Bianca
@Geminid:
LOL! I went to an Episcopal church growing up, and was in the choir, and we had great music and a lot of pomp and circumstance attached, but yeah – compared to a *Black* Episcopal Church, a typical service would have seemed pretty somber!
lowtechcyclist
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
A decade or so ago, a lot of primarily white evangelical churches were somewhat successful in outreach to black evangelicals.
Then along came Trump, and not surprisingly, most of the blacks decided it wasn’t gonna work out.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: I think it’s really important to be able to speak truth to power in real time.
Especially since Elon Musk has screwed around with Twitter so much.
In the immediate aftermath of January 6, the WaPost was not allowing reader comments on those stories, but I think that was to prevent bad actors from communicating in their threads.
Immanentize
@satby: i am pretty sure you aren’t still here, but you don’t need to register a trademark to have rights for your name, mark, etc. Especially for appropriation like this jack ass is doing.
You could send him a take down order letter if he is anywhere online. Just depends if you want to be nice Satby, or red headed Satby of Justice.
Elizabelle
@Quiltingfool: Now, you can barely get people to wear sufficient clothing on airliners. It used to be special to fly, too.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I’m sure that the producers of the TV show took a lot of fan hate for making Iris black. I never cared one way or the other, though. And yeah, I used to hear that from my mother – “Why are there so many black people in ads, it’s not natural” or something similar. The modern world made her really, really, really uncomfortable. That’s why I get the idea that most conservatives don’t care if there are gay people as long as they stay out of public view. Conservatives don’t want to be reminded that they even exist. Now trans people, that’s a whole other topic…..
Another Scott
@Elizabelle:
Obligatory Popehat:
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t let him get in The Box!!
;-)
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Memory fails to bring up which specific mainstream U.S. Christian denomination banned the hymn Old Hundredth some time during the 19th century as being “too sprightly.”
Delk
Greenwald’ s husband died. 38 years old.
Immanentize
@Delk: I want to say things about this, but I will not. EXCEPT — did GG immediately put up a GoFundMe or Patrion or some such?
Elizabelle
@Delk: You got me to look. David Miranda sounds like a better man than his widower.
The Guardian:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: LOL. In the mid-70s our (my mom’s) Catholic church in Leafy Suburb started a “guitar mass” to draw in the young people, inspired I supposed by Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. Watching my CCD teacher rock out with a tambourine to the jazzed up hymns…. it’s an image I can still see in my mind’s eye
Layer8Problem
@Amir Khalid: Upvote for Aoife. I knew a bartender/writer here named Aoife.
lowtechcyclist
@Quiltingfool:
Been a long time since I’ve been in a church for anything besides weddings and funerals, so I can’t comment on what people are actually wearing there these days.
But IME, white people weren’t dressing up that much for the office in the Before Times, weren’t wearing anything different to get on the airplane, etc. It’s not a matter of affording, it’s a matter of lots of people not feeling comfortable with having to get dressed up anymore. So if it’s going to be an implicit requirement, it acts as a barrier.
Besides, maybe churches, which are theoretically about God’s love for everybody, shouldn’t make a big deal out of how people dress as long as it’s decent.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: In Latin of course.
Elizabelle
@Layer8Problem: How did your friend pronounce that name?
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My church went through that phase too! Late 60s – as a very young child, I remember young, hip Father Karscaden (spelling?!) leading folk-music-y gospel services in the Undercroft.
Kristine
@H.E.Wolf: Adding my Wow to everyone else’s.
Uncle Cosmo
@satby: You need to speak wit’ somma my peeps from Nort’ Joyzee with names that end in vowels…he’ll never hafta worry about retirement…
Paul in KY
@PST: I think they also save money by being able to run the same exact commercials on shows they think mostly white people watch and shows they think mostly black people watch.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Currently in a minor contretemps with Mom over step-nephew’s impending wedding.
Don’t own any formal wear anymore, don’t want to own any, and no intention of purchasing same for a single use. If Hawaiian formal (aloha shirt and slacks) doesn’t cut the mustard, perfectly happy with being banished to outside.
Also whether or not to stay at the nearby step-mother-in-law’s house or a hotel after the reception. It’s only a relaxing hour and ten minutes drive down a beautiful highway, so putting my foot down on insisting on driving back to her place. Two days interacting with folks of any ilk whom I don’t particularly care for is three days too many.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Aoife = EE-fa, at least in my neck of the woods.
Layer8Problem
@PJ: Actually, the Aoife I mentioned above named her daughter Saoirse.
Layer8Problem
@Elizabelle, @Miss Bianca: Precisely.
NotMax
Fun stuff from Ed.
The history of the hearse.
louc
@Suzanne:
It’s even worse. They’re calling abortions “miscarriages” when they’re clearly elective abortions. I think of one of the Duggar kids as a prime example.
Cheryl from Maryland
@satby: is the asswipe selling on Etsy? You have an Etsy shop, yes? If he’s selling rip-off products, Etsy now has an infringement help site, including reporting bastards who steal creatives’ ideas.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I remember thinking it was remarkable the first time I saw a comedy sketch from Mitchell and Webb’s show in which the characters were a gay couple… and that was not the joke nor had anything to do with the joke; it was just an incidental detail, treated neutrally. It felt like a barrier had been broken.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: You can rent it.
Citizen Alan
@Jackie: Remember when the Bernie crowd was screaming hysterically about Super Delegates? good times.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist:
I feel like I’ve been part of this trend and I feel kind of bad about it, but I also wonder why I never feel comfortable with getting dressed up. I think that in my case it was the result of a lot of bullying and teasing that happened in my childhood and adolescence–the feeling that any effort I make to look good is just going to make me look ridiculous, like a clown.
Part of that is weird masculinity rules and part of it is the idea that if you’re not in the natural upper 10% of appearance to begin with you might as well not bother. It’s all probably a thing to work to get over.
With airplanes, in particular, I think part of what drove the trend toward informal travel clothing is just that the experience has gotten so physically uncomfortable. If they’re going to make you partially undress and pat you down at the airport, then jam you in a little slot that requires odd body contortions and hardly even feed you, with the need to run like a maniac to make connections in between, you don’t want your outfit to make the experience even more unpleasant. You want to dress for comfort.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: Come and sit by me, please. I hate hate hate seeing things like BASEBALL CAPS AT A FUNERAL OR WEDDING. It’s gross and disrespectful. Every man should have one nice pair of pants and nice shirt – it doesn’t have to be a suit with a tie, but please don’t dress like you’re at home watching the football game from your couch. Some of the women aren’t much better, either. Please dress like it’s a special occasion. I’m not unhappy about the casual attitude that’s invaded the workplace, but weddings and funerals are a bridge too far for me.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: You must be younger than me. I graduated in 1987 and I have no recollection of either Mississippi history or American History even reaching the civil rights era. The latter pretty much ended with WW2, the former, IIRC, with Theodore Bilbo! I am embarrassed to say that an Eastland Scholarship paid my way through law school and yet I was a 3L before I learned who James Eastland was and why it was abhorrent that the law school library was named after him. I’ve always thought 90% of the impetus to finally build a new law building was just so they could ditch Eastland’s name without triggering the Kluckers.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: Also, the absolute best thing that happened to me was switching before the 9th grade from a county school that had exactly 3 black kids grades K-12 to a city school that was 40% AA. It also had a band program that I got into, and being around, not just black kids, but really bright, college-bound black kids who defied all the stereotypes I’d been raised with about black people in Mississippi was eye-opening to my ignorant 13yo self.
Manyakitty
@Immanentize: samesamesamesamesame
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: High school class of 1986, but it was in rapidly gentrifying/diversifying northern Virginia so the curriculum was this weird mix of progressive and Dixie elements.
Citizen Alan
@eclare: At Ole Miss, the Pikes were just violent thugs. The KAs were racist snobs, while SAE was the date rape frat. I never considered pledging a social frat. which I regretted at times because you really don’t get the social experience of Ole Miss at all if you’re not a part of the Greek scene. Most of them were varying degrees of horrible, but I might have enjoyed being a Delta Psi or a Chi Psi, both of which had the reputation of being the “nerd fraternities.”
Anyway
@NotMax:
one vote for hotel.
NotMax
@Anyway
Hellscape for an insomniac (cigar) smoker.
Suzanne
@NotMax:
I rent formalwear for weddings. I can always have something for the right season, theme, etc.
Steeplejack
@Citizen Alan:
I’m not a fraternity guy, but I believe the Pikes—Pi Kappa Alpha—are different from Pi Kappa Phi.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: Every American should be reading Francis Wilkerson’s “Warmth of Other Suns” and “Caste”. Hotels wouldn’t even let a black doctor stop for a bathroom break as he was migrating post MS flood to Los Angeles.
Elizabelle
@Anyway: Agree. For NotMax. Hotel, although close enough to hang out with relatives, if that turns out to be fun.
But you want to be able to get away, too!
Elizabelle
@Ksmiami: Isabel Wilkerson.
But yes. Excellent writer; important books.
It interests me that I never find those books at library sales. People seem to hang on to them.
dirge
@lowtechcyclist:
Definitely should be named Photon.
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: why not Mitch too? Seriously, Biden needs to tell them there’s no negotiation for a clean debt bill – and he’ll invoke the 14th and make their lives hell. Actually he could just say all fed payments to red states will be the first to stop.
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly: Well none of my family is rich but I have a story perhaps relevant to this. By coincidence, I just had a conversation earlier today with my favorite aunt who is in her early 80s but still quite spry. She called me up very upset because she couldn’t find the electric hedge trimmer my late mother had lent her before passing. She was particularly worried that it might have been stolen out of her carport because she’d noticed “all these blacks walking up and down the road,” a passing statement that made me wince but I let it slide. Naturally, she called me back five minutes later to say that she’d found the trimmer which had simply fallen behind some boxes in the garage.
During the same conversation, she also had harsh words to say about my late mother’s (white) cleaning lady who got fired after she stole some things from my mother (and nearly went to jail for forging a $200 check off my mother’s account). It was telling, I thought, because it gave insight into who my aunt instinctively might have viewed as a likely criminal.
So in her case, I think it’s a mix of classism, racism, and pragmatic self-interest. An elderly white woman living alone out in a rural area is, of course, worried about criminal intrusion. And because all humans engage in pattern recognition and lizard-brain threat assessment, she sees all poor people as being potential criminals of opportunity and so worries about even white people from lower class backgrounds having access to her home. But she also perceives any black person walking down the road who she doesn’t know (a rare occurrence anyway in her isolated, rural area) as likely both impoverished and likely poorly raised and thus a greater potential threat than random white people she doesn’t know, although she would never consciously put it in those terms.
My own cynical view is that, at the end of the day, we are all just chimpanzees who have been strategically shaved and given a thin veneer of civilization, but we still subconsciously view every interaction with an unknown person through the lens of “part of the tribe or not part of the tribe.”
And so, “poorer than me” ticks a danger box. “Poorer than me and walking round during the day instead of gainfully employed” ticks additional danger boxes. “Poorer than me, walking around unemployed during the day, and also part of a different ethnic group that I have been raised to look down on and distrust my whole life” ticks still more boxes. But in my aunt’s case, I don’t see it as pure racism or even classism, because I think she would be far more hospitable to a clean-cut young black man who showed up at her door wearing a coat and tie or even the uniform of some business than she would be to a slovenly white person who looked “up to no good.”
I’m still working my way through my thoughts about that interaction while trying to work up the energy to go trim my mother’s overgrown hedges now that I have the electric hedge trimmer back. :)
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@schrodingers_cat:
Will he have Schrodinger’s Cat’s Cat as one of his names? (He should definitely have more than one name – as all cats should.)
NotMax
@Elizabelle
A scenario which by any stretch of the imagination hasn’t happened yet. Uneasy detente is the utmost which can be expected.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I also was taken to church every Sunday till I was 11 or 12. Here in SoCal where I was born. I don’t recall ever seeing a black or brown face anywhere on Sunday. And as I wrote above that was most everywhere other than “that part of town.” In “liberal” SoCal. In case anyone didn’t get the sarcasm there CA was not the liberal state it is today back 70+ yrs ago. Neither was much of the country. But the population was much different then. The population of CA the year I was born was just over 10 million. If you go back another 20 yrs it was just over half of that. Today it is almost 4 times what it was when I was born. And Los Angeles County now has a population larger than 40 states. Just a tad bit has changed in this country over my lifetime. And while I’m old, I’m not close to the oldest person I know.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: That deference to parental authority folds like a cheap suit the second a parent chooses to teach their kids anything that defies conservative orthodoxy. Or even chooses to support their children in doing something that does so. See also the recently signed Florida law that threatens to steal trans children away from parents who support their transitions.
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: At UK, if I had pledged one, it would probably have been Sigma Nu.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I imagine the next step is to pass a law allowing for the use of prison work gangs in construction work.
Citizen Alan
@UncleEbeneezer: I was around 35 or so when I politely but firmly told my father never to use the N-word in my presence again. And he never did. And if my late mother is to be believed, he voted for Obama twice before he died. OTOH, he asked me equally politely but firmly not to plan an Obama-Biden sign in my front yard in 2012 because at best it would be bad for business (I was in private practice and worked out of an office in my home at the time) and, to a lesser extent, he was genuinely worried that there might be some kind of low-level violence directed against me if I were a white man with an Obama sign in North Mississippi. There would not have been in Oxford where I lived, but there might well have been if I’d been living in the more rural area where he lived.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: Getting back to my earlier comment about my aunt, I suppose a fear of being a rape victim is a bigger deal for an elderly woman living alone than it would be for me. And your comment about The Flash reminds me of the amusing detail that Amy and Rory were the only companions in the modern Doctor Who era to have never been in an interracial relationship. Well, unless you count Dan, of course. No one counts Dan, do they?
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
I own a suit. I haven’t worn it in at least 20 yrs. I have owned a tux and wore it to awards banquets when I worked in pro sports. All my long pants are Levis and all my cargo shorts are as stylish as, well nothing. And I rarely see anyone in SoCal dressed up any more than me. I haven’t been to a church for other than a wedding or funeral in quite a few decades. I do walk by several when I take my long walk.
The Lodger
@Citizen Alan: At Delaware, the one frat that was at all interesting to me was Delta Upsilon, where Kurt Vonnegut was a brother.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
When I worked in pro sports I traveled a lot. And most of it was flying. Once a Hertz clerk told me I was in the top 5% of all Hertz renters because I rented so often. I always traveled comfortably dressed and that was part of the surprise on that Hertz clerk’s face, dressed casually – as in very casually and renting that often. But I wore a uniform when on the job at an event so it was casual and uniform. I traveled 8-9 months a year, several of those months every week. Over the 7-8 yrs before going to work there full time I worked one type of event and still traveled around the country. I just did a LOT more travel when working there full time. I’ve traveled to and worked events in 46 states.
Anyway
@NotMax:
IME, smoking is verboten in most houses … ymmv
NotMax
@Anyway
Spend much of the visiting time hanging out on Mom’s balcony.
;)
TerryC
@satby: Hire a hacker for, say, $500?
J R in WV
@eclare:
over the ridges between the farms. And for just a minute we look at each other with a “WTF was that?” and then think “Oh, well, that was just Troy shooting his cannon.” Usually there’s a lot of target practice after the initial Booms. Just machine guns and attack rifles tho….
J R in WV
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Was to my brother’s wedding in Decatur GA. Congregant (from GA) asked best man (V large law officer from WV) that exact question right behind us at rehearsals. Joe was so shocked he could only say “I’m sure I don’t know!” which was pitch perfect…