Lately we’ve been watching Yellowstone, which is about a ruthless Montana ranching family who are trying to hang onto the valley and cattle operation they’ve owned for 100 years rather than let city folks buy it up to build airports, ski resorts and condos. The family’s ancestors stole the valley from Native Americans, who had tried to keep the ranchers, cows and fences out.
As the descendant of folks who stole land in a different frontier generations ago — flatter, swampier, hotter Florida — I find the plight of the change resisters in Yellowstone relatable. Not so much the opposition to the “pave paradise and put up a parking lot” component; most of that happened here before I was born. It’s the attempts to change the character of the place itself that pisses me off.
Here’s an example from Hernando County, Florida, where local school board member Shannon Rodriguez, a “Moms for Liberty” GOP operative, ratted out her daughter’s fifth grade teacher, Jenna Barbee, to the state department of education. The teacher’s offense was showing Disney’s “Strange World” movie to part of her class while classmates finished a test. There’s no sexuality in the movie, but there is a gay character, and acknowledging queer people’s existence is verboten now for K-12 public schools.
“It is not a teacher’s job to impose their beliefs upon a child: religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, any of the above. But allowing movies such as this assist teachers in opening a door, and please hear me, they assist teachers in opening a door for conversations that have no place in our classrooms,” Rodriguez said at a May 9 school board meeting…
“A school board member, an elected official of power, who was supposed to be nonpartisan, is allowed to present to the public that she is Christian and that God appointed her to the board. And yet it is indoctrination that I showed a Disney movie,” said Barbee.
Rodriguez responded, “as a leader in this community, I’m not going to stand by and allow this minority to infiltrate our schools … God did put me here.”
Rodriquez has it exactly bass-ackwards — she and her fellow god-bothering morons are the “minority” who are infiltrating our schools and government. Will the rest of us stand by and allow it? So far we have.
As Yellowstone portrays it, Montana values are self-reliance and toughness. Florida’s character was quirky and mostly tolerant until the morality police took over the government. It wasn’t always tolerant of everyone, of course. This is a former Confederate state that is still culturally about one-third Alabama. Racism, sexism, homophobia and stunning levels of corruption and greed have always had a home here.
But Floridians reveled in our weirdness for a generation or two, from Key West’s big gay Fantasy Fests to the Redneck Riviera’s wild scenes of spring break debauchery to Florida Man’s ubiquitous antics. As Sun Sentinel columnist Fred Grimm suggests, we’ve lost something many of us didn’t even know was precious as “nasty, intolerant politics takes the fun out of Margaritaville:”
Florida’s reverse-metamorphosis from butterfly to caterpillar, from moderate, tolerant, multi-cultural tourist destination to an immigrant-bashing, drag-queen-hating bastion of white Christian nationalism has become our most noteworthy attribute. No one cares anymore about a Florida Man so desperate for a ride to Hooters he called 911…
Florida expat nautical writer and world traveler John Kretschmer has noticed that Europeans have a new regard for the state. “In the not-so-distant past, the mention of Florida would bring a smile and talk of sun, beaches, good times, maybe not too serious, but a place everybody wanted to go,” John told me. “Not so much these days. People look at me with concern. Almost like I said I was from Texas.”
The truth is, the morality police were playing the long game for decades while the rest of us lounged on the beach. Those who sat on the sidelines let this happen, and unless they get off their duffs and help reclaim what we had, it will stay lost.
On some level, the chief of the morality police, DeSantis, understands that his values aren’t compatible with the state’s, which is why he explicitly disowns the quirky Florida he grew up in. Here’s how he primly signaled that to the tens who’ve read his shitty book:
“I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay,” DeSantis writes, “but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio — from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep. This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.”
I don’t know if that asshole and the extremists he’s summoned from the woodwork will remain a Florida problem or become America’s problem. My sense is the latter option is less likely today than it was a few months ago, but we’ve seen demagogues who’ve been declared dead by the celebrity Beltway press rise again, so this is no time to relax.
As for Florida, where the wreckage is piling up daily, the seeds of potential redemption may be germinating in the current governor’s ambitious overreach. I don’t say it’s inevitable that we come back from this, but I do believe it’s possible.
One memorable line from Yellowstone sums up the plot: “You build something worth having, someone’s gonna try to take it.” The mistake those who valued quirky, tolerant Florida made was in thinking all the stuff worth having was already gone. It wasn’t. We can take it back, and maybe these three words can be the slogan of that effort: Keep Florida Weird.
Open thread.
OverTwistWillie
I saw this elsewhere online, and thought of BC:
japa21
Hope springs eternal, yet hope alone isn’t enough. We can hope that DeSantis has worn out his welcome, even in Florida, but work is required to make sure that is the case. Same nationally.
We are going to Disney World in August. Don’t bring up the heat and humidity, please. Already fully aware. This will be the last time we will go to Florida unless things change.
Which is sad. There are so many things in Florida that we love, from the Corkscrew Sanctuary to St. Augustine.
NeenerNeener
There’s a prequel to Yellowstone called 1883, and at the end of that series the tribe that lived in that area told Pa Dutton that his family could live in that valley for some number of generations, but after that the local tribe wanted them gone. I vaguely remember it being something like 7 generations, but back then no one lived past 60 so 7 generations were expected to have come and gone a lot faster than they actually did.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Carl Hiasson and Tim Dorsey have to be apoplectic over the notion that their prime subject matter of Florida Man doesn’t hardly exist anymore.
cain
Not say gay in classrooms – many youths know they are gay by the time they are 8-9 years old. Saying you can’t have those conversations about identity is ridiculously stupid because The Ghey is all around you. Human sexuality is not a binary choice – and that’s a wonderful thing. Being able to love in all its complexity is a beautiful thing.
In any case, what the fuck are you going to do when you talk about Mathematics and you’re talking about Turing machines – can’t talk about Alan Turing and him being gay?
What’s especially nuts is that you can’t even do it in college apparently? Eventually, it’s going to come down on all of them like a bag of hammers. This country is already accepting of everything and they are an anachronism – they’ll hold on to power but the next generation should tell them that their beliefs will not survive past Gen X.
Math Guy
Same sex relationships and marriage are legal, in fact, constitutional, in this country so how is it possible that banning portrayals of the existence of such relationships would be legally acceptable?
Betty Cracker
@japa21: I read a piece in Salon the other day about how to fight back against fascism in Florida, which the author correctly notes is a threat to the whole country. It’s worth a read.
cain
You know I hear there was a lot of controversy around Kevin Costner declaring himself a conservative and all that and didn’t give a shit about whether it costs him stardom. Dumb ass.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
As I think about it, this all comes down to the fact that Florida became the preferred destination for all of the shittiest people (retired and otherwise) from a quadrilateral bounded by lines that run from St Louis to Cape May, Cape May to New London, New London to Appleton, and from Appleton down to St Louis.
Old School
We took the kids to see “Strange World” in the theater last year. (One of the few as it didn’t do overly well at the box office.) It was an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours and the “gay” storyline was a subplot. It certainly isn’t the main storyline.
Baud
@cain:
What has he even done lately?
gwangung
Knowing one of the directors, I was kinda disappointed Strange World did so poorly at the box office.
But it was a perfectly fine, unobjectionable piece of work…maybe this will turn around and get him some notoriety.
OverTwistWillie
Reactionary politics are part and parcel of the bust out. A half remembered comment to a sixty year old film touting California’s new highways:
everything thing is so clean, and no traffic…
No shit Sherlock. They grab the cash, trash a place and complain when the bills for the commonweal come due. Just blame it all on “those people”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I remembered Costner as having been a Hollywood Republican in the 90s. I don’t think that hurt his career as much as Waterworld. Just about everybody I know loves Yellowstone, I watched the first episode and felt like it takes itself extremely seriousl
ETA: On Florida: I saw on twitter yesterday yet another link to yet another article about how Casey De Santis is a “secret weapon”. I didn’t note which outlet it was, but somebody really, really wants to make Casey happen
CindyH
@cain: I read he supported Liz Cheney and supported Pete Buttigieg so doesn’t seem strictly conservative
UncleEbeneezer
Just curious: Do any of these historical Western rancher series’ ever address the Homestead Act and which demographic groups were given access to land and weren’t? I’d love to see that sort of thing show up more in our popular formulations of the West. Godless had the plot line that involved a Black girl who lived outside of town with the former Buffalo Soldiers, so it sort of touched on the discrimination/segregation of the West. The English was also very good for showing the Native-American perspective of the West in a way that seemed much more honest than most.
Renie
So how does DeSantis reconcile his anti-gay agenda with Key West? Does he just ignore it and pretend it’s not part of Florida?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve never gotten into Western as a genre.
I wonder if they’re pissed that Country/Western is now just called Country.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Western as a movie genre or music?
japa21
@Betty Cracker: Definitely worth the read. A lot more is going on down there than I knew about in terms of standing up to DeSantis. It appears that he may have really overreached.
artem1s
between rising sea levels, hurricanes, red tide and now White Nationalism/Fascism I think it’s likely FL’s tourism industry is going to start taking a hit. Cheap ass airfare isn’t going to make up for threatening the majority of your customers with cancel culture, violence, and even extermination. I took a driving trip thru the state down to Key Largo last fall but will probably opt to take my vacation dollars elsewhere this year. I was very nervous about driving thru the state alone. It wasn’t a problem but that was before the crazy really started to ramp up with DeathSantos. I was more nervous about getting COVID honestly. But now I just flat out don’t want to be there or support the state’s economy. I can’t imagine anyone thinking it’s a great place to buy property or retire too. It will always be the easy choice if you are east of the Rockies. But it’s gotten way too crowded , too full of The Villages mentality and there are other options that don’t include dealing with Talibangicals on every corner.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve never gotten into Westerns as movies or music.
Low Key Swagger
The larger point of this point requires more time to ponder and respond…but I find the whole “Yellowstone” series kind of peculiar. It is, at it’s core, an hour long soap opera designed to sell Dodge trucks and Orvis coats and jackets. I think it works as a show because it has something for everyone. Horses, breath-taking vistas, beautiful ranches, gun violence and complicated families. I see the merch everywhere. But to me, the most popular characters are the least likeable. They are all killers who find ways to justify murder and vigilantism. Bothers me.
Sure Lurkalot
That DeSantis quote of being raised in Tampa but his upbringing was culturally rust belt is so much bullshit. If that’s where his (mostly apocryphal) values of being hard working and god fearing are, why doesn’t he go live there? The salt of the earth posturing is so tiring.
And to notice, there are humans who are born with markers they don’t identify with, much like ol’ Ron doesn’t identify with his upbringing. He’s putting those humans in harm’s way so he can just go fuck right off.
mrmoshpotato
@OverTwistWillie:
I can only assume this means Rethuglican trash that we throw out of our state government up here.
scav
@mrmoshpotato: Jail or FL, the usual retirement spots of many IL officials. Hairs breath of difference in many instances. Sometimes we just don’t need the license plates.
mrmoshpotato
@Sure Lurkalot:
Because he doesn’t want to be cold in winter. (tantrum.gif)
cain
@Baud: I think he’s doing Yellowstone. But other than that – nothing?
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Casey DeSantis, you say?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mrmoshpotato: IIRC Rauner moved down to FL after he lost. There was a mini-scandal when the “exclusive enclave” he now lives in somehow got bumped up the priority list for vaccines by the now anti-vax governor
cain
@CindyH: So maybe a classical conservative – and not a MAGA asshat.
Baud
@cain: Ah, I’ve never watched that show.
Cameron
Certainly Whiteboots Puddinghand is demonstrating his awesome govermenteralizering skills for the whole country to admire. A Florida city drowns under an apocalyptic rainstorm? Keep on keepin’ on with that book tour! Stand strong! Your state’s largest employer expresses some concern over government-mandated gender restrictions? Attack them with some of that First-Amendment-violating legislation – and openly brag about it! Hmm-could that be the Florida tourist industry swirling around in the porcelain bowl? Time to double down – terrify immigrants away from the state! I mean, that worked so well for Georgia farmers when their state pulled this same shit a few years ago. You can trash Florida’s ag industry, too! Shine on, you crazy diamond!
Marmot
Nice to see Austin’s (positive) influence put to work! We’ve got a lot to make up for after Alex Jones.
We also have our work cut out for us. Regular Texans don’t pay attention to politics, then default to whatever fits some nostalgic stereotype in the voting booth. Just motivating them to look up once in a while would solve our state Dems’ electoral problems.
catclub
Our band plays all kinds of music. Country AND Western
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s not Italy. He said he was going to fuck off to Italy.
Ah yes. I remember that. Bastards.
catclub
@Baud:
 
Does that include the soundtrack to “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”? which is amazing.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Last movie I saw Kevin Costner in, he played Superman’s Earth dad — I’m not sure now who played Superman.
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: 🎶 Can’t be this happy, somebody slap me🎶
E.
@Low Key Swagger: Yesterday many raised the same complaints about Succession. Like you I never found anyone to like in Yellowstone and quit watching. In Succession I think it is way, way more complicated. In Succession you get tricked into rooting, in a way, for all the wrong people, and then watch them wreck the world. Similar to how Milton gets you to root for Satan in Paradise Lost. The ways of the Roys (or for Milton, Satan) are our ways and we need to see what they lead to in order to stop them.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Since you’re here, my answer to your comment about “Napoleon” last night:
@Steeplejack: since you check dead threads—I saw it with the KC Philharmonic in a grand old auditorium. Music— A plus, movie —snooze. And I hate The Gold Rush and all Chaplin
Mai Naem mobile
Moms for Liberty is just another astroturfing organization and its all got to do with $$$ and power. Its about defunding public schools, turning the money over to the religious schools via school vouchers, thus enriching their evangelical pals. I guarantee you Shannon Rodriguez doesn’t give a crap about gays or trans. Like Kari Lake she’s probably an aficionado of drag shows. Nice little bonus for the GOP is effectively destroying teachers unions.
Betty Cracker
Y’all:
Maybe Tacky O isn’t cut out for giving human lessons…
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: that Salon piece is good. The recommendations at the end are also good, but a little wordy and very long-term/aspirational.
In the short term? Sue the shit out of DeSantis. FL citizens’ rights and livelihoods are being trampled on like crazy.
UncleEbeneezer
Barb McQuade lists all of the ways that the Durham
ReportWitch-hunt is bullshit.Anoniminous
New Study Finds a High Minimum Wage Creates Jobs
Not a surprise to anyone who hasn’t been brain damaged by Conservativism.
StringOnAStick
@catclub: Since what used to be called country and western is now the music of choice in the former slave holding states, “western” has become superfluous and unrepresentative.
I have tried to get my husband to see how all the westerns we grew up with the the 1960’s is part of the mythos of the self made American, but I grew up in the West and he grew up in Detroit so he doesn’t see it. In the west, we felt seen and praised as aspirational for the rest of the US
Jeffro
Were ‘starbursts’ mentioned? ‘Cause I think that’s about 95% of what’s going on here.
That, and the wing nuts think they’ve found their own Jackie O (and not some tawdry rent-a-wife that they have to pretend is a great First Lady) this time.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Wow. The pic on the left is out there – it looks like he’s going retro and turning into one of the aliens from that old series V.
patrick II
What upsets me the most about this is the fifth grader has been taught to report “inappropriate” behavior to an authority — in this case her parent. It reminds me of stories of communist Russia and Fascist Germany where children were used to keep an eye on adults, and even parents could not trust their children anymore. It is very chilling.
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@mrmoshpotato:
Naples maybe?
Betty Cracker
@Betty Cracker: The DeSantis Laughing Scarily video is even worse with the sound up because you can hear that the whole body convulsion-fake laugh was in response to a completely generic comment. He most have been instructed to dispense a specific number of whole body convulsion-fake laughs and was trying to hit the quota.
Roberto el oso
“Yellowstone” was recommended to us, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Kevin Costner (hell, I even liked ‘The Postman’) so …… There are no nice or good characters, although a few are likeable (Cole Hauser is unrecognizable as Rip, the head cowboy, and is very watchable). But it’s cartoonish in quite a few ways (irritating-as-hell hippie/environmental chick, alcoholic bad-ass daughter toughing it thru multiple traumas, ex-military sensitive son who is married to a Native American, creepy East or West coasters set on plundering the landscape for profit … on and on). And there’s an incredible amount of filler (endless scenes of cowboys breaking in horses (many of which include Taylor Sheridan, who is the show’s creator and quite a horseman) ; endless (and I mean bloody interminable) scenes of “country” bands playing in bars, at county fairs, all the singers with just incredibly exaggerated and to me, fake-sounding, Texas or Oklahoma accents). All in all, I’d say there’s more of a libertarian tilt than a conservative one, and with a few exceptions, pretty much every female character is depicted as a cheerful, carefree slut.
Despite all that, the acting is good and the vistas are, as they say, breath-taking. It hasn’t yet turned into a hate-watch the way “Narcos” was, but it might.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Wow.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I’m glad you posted this! I saw it early and was like, “holy f-bomb, NO ONE is going to warm up to that weirdo!”
(I know…take nothing for granted, ‘run through the finish line’, all that, but STILL. If I was a Republican looking at DeSantis as my alternative to trumpov, I’d keep looking for any number of reasons with this being in the top three)
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Napoleon certainly isn’t on my top-however-many list of silent movies, but it was great to have the classical movie palace experience, and it was back when you couldn’t stream stuff or (usually) even find it on DVD. (Can’t remember when that revival was; it might have been before DVDs.)
Too bad about Chaplin. He did some great stuff. As I thought about it more last night, I think the silent “genre” especially lends itself to horror. Vampyr, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M (oops, not really silent, but almost), etc. Although that might just have been those crazy German expressionists.
Greg
One possible way to fight those “moms” is to protest every movie that has any mention of family. If “it is not a teacher’s job to impose their beliefs upon a child: religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, any of the above. But allowing movies such as this assist teachers in opening a door, and please hear me, they assist teachers in opening a door for conversations that have no place in our classrooms,” then any mention of any family structure is forbidden.
Make Moms for Liberty own this. Make them explicitly defend why “Leave it to Beaver” doesn’t impose a belief of religious, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
Betty Cracker
@Roberto el oso: My husband calls it “formulaic drivel,” and he’s not wrong. I agree about the filler content — they probably couldn’t get away so much of it if the subject wasn’t adorable horsies.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Best comment: “The charisma positively oozes from this man.”
Mai Naem mobile
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why doesn’t Dollar Store Jackie imitate Nancy Reagan?
BlueGuitarist
In addition to pandering references to “western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio” to “the tens (haha!) who’ve read his shitty book,” (general election pitch?) DeSadeness has been pandering everywhere he goes, calling Florida “the Iowa of the southeast” in Iowa, (first caucus state), but also the “Utah of the southeast” in Utah (!)
is he just a ridiculous jerk or does he hate Florida as much as he hates Jesus and good Samaritans?
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Yeah, I’ve tried them all. I realize it’s my problem, not the movies. Once you get into talkies, though, I can dig any amount of substandard material, as long as Warren William is involved!
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: that’s the first time I’ve seen the video. I thought the pic was just one of those pics caught at right at the moment where he looks weird. Nah, he’s just plain awkward.
Jinchi
DeSantis’s extremism should be a prime opportunity for the opposition to build a base of candidates up and down the ballot. Is any of that happening out of sight of the national media?
( I won’t hold out much hope if the answer involves another run by Charlie Crist)
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Don’t pander to my love of Warren William!
BlueGuitarist
Guide for election results watch tonight, mostly PA and KY but also mayor of Jacksonville and Colorado Springs:
https://boltsmag.org/whats-on-the-ballot/may-16-election-night-guide-2023/
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: DeSantis is shape-shifting, from koi to hyena.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: 😂😂😂
Sure Lurkalot
@UncleEbeneezer: Barbara McQuade’s thread about the Durham report is quite good and summarizes what is a very complex and convoluted story and investigation. Compared to Emptywheel’s which, unless you have a drive in theater size white board with every player and event connected with pushpins and string, is simply unreadable.
Amir Khalid
@Jeffro:
Everyone here needs to get this right: When she was FLOTUS, she was Jackie Kennedy. She didn’t become Jackie O until she married that rich Greek guy years later.
oatler
@Low Key Swagger:
It’s red state television. My sister, newly moved to MT, dotes on it. She is a woman of “liberal values” who happens to pine for a crisp Republican now and then (guy she married voted for TFG on 2016). She may be a Yellowstone Moderate, to be courted during election year.
MisterForkbeard
@Steeplejack: To be fair, I’d totally wear a cape to work if I could.
But no, normal people don’t get to do that.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Can call her JBK, too.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
“DeSantis will eat your children.”
Paid for by the Friends of Brandon Super PAC.
UncleEbeneezer
@StringOnAStick: There’s a book called West of Slavery that argues that the West was really an extension of the South due to having so many Confederates who moved there, bringing pro-Slavery sympathies and politics. So it makes sense that the Rugged Individual (always White) mythology took hold in narratives about the West. America loves to make stories where we get to be the heroes and builders while skipping past the stolen land, slavery and genocide. So Western dramas are the perfect setting/vehicle for patting ourselves on the back and re-writing history. The fact that the first, movie blockbuster was Birth Of A Nation, is very telling.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t read much of the celebrity press, but the Google makes sure I can’t avoid it completely, and as Yellowstone has been big in the news lately there have been side stories about how the creator/producer is apparently soaking the studio with fat fees for using his ranch, his horsies, etc. He even rents out his cattle herd to be in scenes.
Perhaps “soaking” is unfair; maybe it’s just standard Hollywood production.
Somewhat related: I have a friend who is tangentially knowledgeable about White House Plumbers (has worked with the producer), and apparently the Kennedy Center charged them $50,000 to do one goddamn shot from their terrace looking across the Potomac toward the Watergate.
Kelly
Oregon has a gold plated pioneer on top of it’s Capitol Building. Pioneers moving into empty land was Oregon history grade school through high school. The Oregon Trail. Grew up liking all the western movies, country and western music. Marty Robbins. We were out listening to some live music a couple weeks ago and they sang a song about pioneers moving west, starting a town in empty land. Kinda jaring now days.
OverTwistWillie
David Milch’s Deadwood is a hard edged western classic. Makes Yellowstone look like The Big Valley.
I believe the WGAs point is the studios are playing accounting games on streaming productions, like they booked huge losses on movie and tv production, and home video. So they don’t have to pay the below the line talent.
Oh, man, the bullshit piled up so fast in
VietnamHollywood, you needed wings to stay above it…Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: OMG it looks like he’s rearing back to bite someone. 🤮
Also, too, as someone born in western PA and who lives in NEOhio, he can keep his filthy mouth to himself about our values. Regrettably, most of our dangerous loons support his monstrous legislation, but yikes.
Jinchi
That tactic doesn’t work. It simply tees up the ball for more “both sides” commentary.
Better to shame the god-botherers who keep ruining everybody’s day. I guarantee the majority of parents in that class wish that mother would shut her damn mouth and I expect her kid is getting a lot of hostile glares from the other students today.
The best counter is for the mass of parents to back up their teacher and show publicly that she has the support of the community.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
Western Swing and Country Jazz are pretty cool (and fun – give a listen to George Barnes Quartet playing the Flinstones theme).
But other C/W? Awful.
“We gots all kinds of music — Country AND Western!” :)
Salty Sam
After over a quarter century, I’d just as soon see Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird” logo go away. It was a good effort then, but has failed miserably (IMHO). I agree with the graffiti I saw posted on a Mopac overpass a few weeks ago: “When “Keep Austin Weird” is printed on bumper stickers by the Chamber of Commerce, it is the very antithesis of weird…”
Maybe Florida can make it work better.
wutdaFalk?!
When I think of people like Ms. Rodriguez and her ilk I think we need to hit them where it hurts. The pocketbook. she does run an auto repair business https://dcaar.com/
geg6
He knows nothing of Western PA or the people here. He’s a disgusting bully and would have had his ass kicked every day at my high school for being who he is. His fucking grandfather lived here. He never did. He knows nothing.
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: Agreed. Poor kids.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
My man! Great trailer: “When the blood flames hot with the zest of youth!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
“Oozing charm from every pore,
He oiled his way around the floor.”
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: Love it! 1932 beefcake in that striped swimsuit!
There go two miscreants
@Steeplejack:
…like pus from a lanced boil!
FelonyGovt
Someone may have already posted this, from this morning’s Los Angeles Times: Florida moms fight book banning fighthttps://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-05-15/florida-book-banning
BlueGuitarist
@catclub:
Ennio Morricone who wrote the music for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and a lot of other westerns, scored many other films including The Mission and Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn! a brilliant, challenging film
impressive Hammond organ for Abolição (abolition). (One word title for film, one word for song title, the only word in song lyrics.)
Marlon Brando called Burn! his best acting despite conflicts with Pontecorvo while making the film: slave revolt, critique of colonialism, imperialism, counterinsurgency warfare, napalm. some gruesome violence, only one word spoken by a woman in the film (bread), woman refuses to speak.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chief Oshkosh: Julian Lage is a phenom guitarist who plays instrumental jazz that has a big country influence. Here’s one of his tunes, Whatever You Say Henry for a taste. And a lovely cover of Call of the Canyon. I don’t really get into most C/W but I love shit like this, so I think it’s the sort of Country that even people who don’t really like Country might dig.
oatler
@SiubhanDuinne:
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
Chief Oshkosh
@Low Key Swagger: It’s essentially The Godfather or The Sopranos or Succession in Big Sky Country.
Except…
It’s incredibly poorly-written. Individual scenes are sometimes well-done, with great writing, acting, and direction. But this rarely lasts through an entire episode, and certainly not through a season. Admittedly, the good bits were very good, and held my attention for a few seasons, but when the producers/writers started rehabilitating every single character, way out of character, and when long-developed storylines were just dropped with no resolution, I moved on.
Costner was the most reliable component. He could’ve been replaced by a mannequin at any point in the series, and nothing would have changed. Dead-nuts reliable. The guy is just an awful actor at this point, with a range from Y to Z (and I loved him in Bull Durham, DWW, The Postman, and other movies).
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
A valuable lesson is to teach what isn’t good behavior, what isn’t good humanity. Little ronnie is a perfect example of both. Not everyone will get the real lesson, in the world everyone has a place and some get misplaced and like him think that their place is the top of the pile. And he really does think his place is the top of the pile, but he’s picked the wrong pile to climb up on. He wants to be top shit, he’s proved that by working towards that with every fiber of his being. My outlook on life is to work to at least not to be top shit. The goal is not to be shit at all but then humanity accepts shit as a part of life. A smelly not so nice part but a necessary part, none the less. Some seem to see their goal in life to be top shit, the smelliest, nastiest shit. And ronnie, while shit, isn’t near the top of that pile. He’s just that small pile that a puppy leaves in the hallway on the way to the bathroom that you step in barefoot, at 3am, disgusting, smelly and gooey.
raven
Drunk driver in Colorado tries to switch seats with his dog!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I have only watched a few spaghetti westerns and Unforgiven. And I thought they were okayish.
Have you watched Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay (which is like a loose adaption of the Western genre but set in India)? It is pretty awesome. It launched many careers and changed the course of the Hindi film industry.
PaulWartenberg
Son of a bitch DeSantis grew up in Dunedin FL, home to bagpipes, biker bars, bad seafood, Phillies spring trainings, and drag racing Curlew Rd at 2 AM in the mornings. For him to reject all of that is to reject that part of Florida that made us fun.
<—proud and loud Boy From the Harb (Palm Harbor) and graduate of Tarpon Springs High. SPONGERS REPRESENT.
Steeplejack
@Chief Oshkosh:
George Barnes Quartet, “Theme from The Flintstones.”
PaulWartenberg
@Betty Cracker:
It’s been established fact since 2012 that they have to teach Republicans to FAKE human empathy. It’s like that moment in Star Trek The Next Generation movie where Data’s newly-installed emotion chip freaks out and he laughs himself into a breakdown.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I can’t see how “don’t say gay” even works. What do you do with the kid who has two moms? Tell him to stuff it? Tell the parents they’re not welcome at teacher conferences?
Roger Moore
@Sure Lurkalot:
It’s also incredibly insulting. It’s contemptuous toward native Floridians, which seems like a really bad approach to politics. I guess he’s decided he’s termed out of office, so he can go ahead and piss off his constituents without consequences. Something tells me it’s not going to work out so well when the Florida primary rolls around.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Is that the one with the guy with no arms? If so, I saw it a long time ago.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Eh, Trump called Iowa losers after he lost to Cruz in the primary and Iowa didn’t care.
E.
@UncleEbeneezer: Idaho is loaded with Southern place names. I lived in Dixie for awhile. Atlanta was down the road a ways.
Manyakitty
@PaulWartenberg: Tarpon Springs and Dunedin are the places my parents and I visit the most when I go down there.
Ksmiami
@Low Key Swagger: Agreed. Wind River is a better representation of the new old west Wyoming
Raven
@Baud: Try “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” by the Cohen Brothers,
Ksmiami
@Dorothy A. Winsor: use the term love… let them try to ban it. Because doesn’t this all come down to love?
Roger Moore
@Anoniminous:
I’m not quite sure about that. The law of supply and demand would seem to imply that raising the cost of labor will result in reduced demand, which convinces people whose economics knowledge stops with the absolute basics. Sadly, that includes a lot of people of all political stripes. It also shows the benefits of including some macroeconomics in Ec101.
Raven
Roger Moore
@Roberto el oso:
I really wanted to like it, but it definitely falls into the category of the book being much better. I think it would be interesting to try to revive it as a prestige TV show. There’s a ton of interesting stuff in the book that just got thrown away to keep the movie to a reasonable runtime, which seems like the kind of thing you could touch on with a good TV series. Also, too, the politics seems like something that is even more relevant today than it was back in the 1980s.
Geminid
@BlueGuitarist: The news site Florida Politics is a good source for news about today’s elections in that state. Their daily “Sunburn” feature this morning led with a report on the Jacksonville Mayoral race. Evidently the Democrat, Ms. Deegan, is getting endorsements from some prominent Republicans; her opponent, they say, is running a dirty campaign. It sounds like he’s appealing to white nationalists as well.
In other election news, final results for Sunday’s election in Turkiye show Erdogan with 49.5% and Kilicdaroglu with 44.96%. Third place finisher Sinan Ogan got 5.19%. Turnout was 86.9% of eligible voters! There will be a runoff between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu May 28.
Ksmiami
@Raven: I’ll check it out- thx!
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: I highly recommend the 6-part series Godless on Netflix. It’s the rare Western that actually centers bad-ass women characters. It’s by some of the same team that did The Queen’s Gambit so it has a similar feminist vibe and even some of the cast-members you may recognize. It’s also filmed near Taos, New Mexico and has absolutely stunning cinematography. Michelle Dockery and Merritt Weaver are both much better than I ever would have imagined and Jeff Daniels delivers a really amazing performance despite playing a truly odious character.
zhena gogolia
@Ksmiami: It’s a great film.
Roberto el oso
@BlueGuitarist: agree! Every time someone mentions “Battle of Algiers” I always put a plug in for ‘Burn!’
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, Mr. Pedant. On a practical level, though, this is exactly what you need to combat when dealing with conservatives. Their worldview is built around their nostalgic memories of the past rather than a realistic historical perspective.
UncleEbeneezer
@E.: The Eastern Sierra in Southern/Central California have the Alabama Hills which are named after a Confederate warship, grrrrr…..
rikyrah
The parent signed the phucking permission slip😠😠😠
rikyrah
Halle singing at Disneyland!
Really, A Star Is Born👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTRKveyKv/
OGLiberal
It seems to me like Florida is the opposite of some of the other former Confederate states. Lots of younger professional types re-locating to states Viriginia, North Carolina and Georgia – VA is pretty much blue already, NC in the middle with slight leans left or right depending on the year, and GA showing bright signs with two Democratic senators. A bit of this in Texas as well – just not reflected yet in statewide offices. But with Florida, it seems like it’s getting crazier because of migrants from up North…not just from “western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio” but also the worst of the older white people from places like Long Island, Staten Island, NJ, New England, the Detroit and Chicago suburbs, etc. Basically, the Villages crew.
E.
@UncleEbeneezer: Highway 99 was designated the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway and even had a big bronze plaque at the first exit in California near the Oregon border. I used to stop and pee on it. Someone took it after the George Floyd murder. Also the “State” of Jefferson was named by miners of Southern descent. They didn’t mean Thomas.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They’re working on it. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to call CPS and have him taken away from such a dangerous environment in which to raise a child.
sdhays
I just need to say that whenever I hear someone say they are “God fearing”, it’s rarely wrong to assume that they don’t fear “God” at all. They don’t believe in “God” any more than any random atheist, because they don’t worry, ever, about what “God” might think of whatever it is they’re doing/want to to. If you’re sure that “God” approves of whatever you do, you really aren’t worried about being wrong.
To them, “God” is nothing more than a cudgel with which to make other people fear the speaker (and their tribe).
cain
@OGLiberal: the good news is that they are leaving the other states and so there is more room for liberalization there. :-) Centralizing the crazy might be good thing.
That said, the state has a lot of challenges and I also expect a lot of people moving out of there especially with climate change, rising prices and so on. I’m not even sure the people coming from up north will be able to afford things – but then maybe they’ll just rent.
Chief Oshkosh
@UncleEbeneezer: Cool – thanks! Lage reminds me of Bill Frisell, especially “Listen” from his album “The Intercontinentals.”
Roger Moore
@Ksmiami:
I really wanted to like that movie, but it wouldn’t let me. It’s classic Hollywood Whitewashing. How can you have a movie that’s supposed to be about how easily Native women disappear and are murdered and have all the major characters be White?
Ken
Wait until the school bans all movies to avoid trouble, and the kids who have finished their tests get to sit at their desks staring into space.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chief Oshkosh: Here he is playing WITH Bill Frissell :)
Chief Oshkosh
@Steeplejack:
Finest kind! Mix that in with some Barney Kessel for California Cool and you’ve got quite an afternoon goin’.
https://youtu.be/91bljoeov0U
Jackie
@Ken: Yup. When we got our assignments done early, we were allowed to read one of our library books. Oh, wait…
UncleEbeneezer
Yup. There was a tweet yesterday:
And of course, we can swap ‘gay’ for ‘black’ and it is almost verbatim the language used in the 1950’s to spread fear about school integration. Fortunately, people are finally starting to recognize that it’s always the same playbook and that we need to really listen when more marginalized groups raise the alarm because it’s never just about this group or that group; the goal is always to expand the attacks to most/all of us.
Chief Oshkosh
@UncleEbeneezer: Dang! Thanks for the link. Welp, there goes any productivity for the afternoon. At least I don’t keep cocktail mixings here in the office…anymore.
UncleEbeneezer
Nikole Hannah Jones with a Florida reminder:
UncleEbeneezer
@Chief Oshkosh: It’s great listening music for working if you turn off the video. And Lage’s whole album Modern Lore has a bunch of Country-ish tunes. It’s probably my fave of all his recordings. I also have some videos on my own YT channel from a show I attended a couple years ago.
Frankensteinbeck
@sdhays:
“God” is a magic word that makes them right and everyone else wrong, case closed. As such they love to say it as much as possible. White American evangelical Christianity’s (I know bupkis about black evangelical Christianity) explicit doctrine is that the words “God” and “Jesus” are moral “I win” buttons and nothing else matters.
kindness
Getting the poor to vote would be a good thing everywhere.
trollhattan
@Low Key Swagger: You get at my issues with the show. It’s incredibly simplistic at its core and even though the murdering ranchers murder their way out of every problem confronting them we’re supposed to root for them because California and New York.
Never mind the biggest threats to Montana and their “way of life” spring from Texas. Them are some proper cowboys down there, yup.
ETA and yeah holy shit, the product placement. So much product placement.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I just had a brilliant idea – Florida Man and Florida Woman.
They can dress in the traditional accoutrements of Florida Man/Florida Woman (dirty tshirts, wearing crocs and sweatpants while carrying a Steel Reserve can) and heckle the fascists and fundamentalist candyass candidates and public officials at events on behalf of a grateful Florida and Nation.
”We Want Our Florida Back” can be the slogan. It’ll catch on, and people will be dressing out for it.
Jay
@MisterForkbeard:
No cape, have you never seen The Incredibles?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M68ndaZSKa8
The Thin Black Duke
Posse is a great western.
https://youtu.be/1D-v8EcGV2Q
Bostondreams
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In all seriousness, teachers are no longer asking students about their families because it could get them in trouble.
trollhattan
@raven: Heh.
I used to have a postcard bought from the rack that always included the jackalope postcards, captioned “Colorado double-date” with a picture taken from behind a pickup with two hatted dudes and two Labs in the cab.
At the time a buddy lived there, Texas tightened their open container law from no law at all to state the driver could not be in possession of one while under way. Many discussions sprang forth on how you’d now always need a buddy along to hold your beer and whether your dog could suffice.
Soprano2
My city makes the news yet again, this time for punishing a student who exposed a teacher who said the “n” word in class multiple times, in that “why can they say it but I can’t” type of way. Note that the student has been identified by name, but the teacher is still anonymous ( I could find out who it is, I know a math teacher at that school!)
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Chief Oshkosh:
I can’t help but say that Tin Cup is one of my favorite movies.
Chief Oshkosh
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Ha! I forgot about that one. Yep, I enjoyed it.
Cameron
@Steeplejack: Now if they had said “drips” instead of “oozes,” you’d know it was pudding, not charisma.
Betty Cracker
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Seriously — that could work! ;-)
Chief Oshkosh
@UncleEbeneezer: I’ve never been too good about keeping focus with music in the background – this stuff is just too fun.
UncleEbeneezer
When I saw “Strange World” in the post title, my mind immediately went to this scene from Blue Velvet. As much as David Lynch tends to be wildly over-praised, this one is example of how when he nails it he really has a special talent. Note the church music composed by Angelo Badalamenti who died last year, and the way that the cathedral light through the car’s window makes a halo on Laura Dern and makes her look like something our of a classical religious painting.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Soprano2:
Impossible! John Roberts has proclaimed that racism in America is over.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
@Betty Cracker:
they kinda did that on 30 Rock with Unwindulax. Amy Sedaris would definitely have to be involved
geg6
@Baud:
Come sit by me.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Betty Cracker:
I also picture hijinks, like rerouting swamp water into the clean water lines at the Villages two days before Election Day, stuffing roadkilled armadillos into nooksin the Governor’s podium the morning before he speaks at an outdoor event, flirting obnoxiously with Casey DeSantis…
Another Scott
Meanwhile, anonymous posts aren’t so anonymous.
@[email protected]:
The original “toot” has an image of the abstract that can be embiggened. I don’t see it at the NBER link.
Cheers,
Scott.
OGLiberal
@Ken: When I was in high school, many years ago, we watched Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet. I wonder if the moral police would object to that today. Maybe not since a lot them may think that seeing a teenage boy’s bare buttocks and teenage girl’s bare breasts is A-OK…”heck, why aren’t those two married already…they’re getting old!”
Dorothy A. Winsor
If they understood was Shakespeare was saying half the time, they wouldn’t allow any of his plays. He had kind of a potty mouth.
Citizen Alan
@artem1s: I interviewed for a career clerkship with a judge in Florida just a few months ago. It was a good interview. And yet … never before in my life have I had the experience of thinking through the entire interview “man, I really hope I don’t get offered this job, because if I do, I think I’ll have to take it and I don’t want to!”
No offense to Betty or other Floridians, but to me, Florida at this point is just Mississippi if 75% of its borders were beaches and it had a three or four of decent sized cities that the state government hated (instead of just the one, Jackson).
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: I thought his operating system had a meltdown.
Old School
@OGLiberal:
When I was in high school, the teacher fast-forwarded through that scene, so I’m assuming there was potential objection those days.
UncleEbeneezer
Betsy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh that old hackneyed trope! How original journalists are — The wife of the politician as “secret weapon” !!
She’s going to “show us his softer side” and “polish off his rough edges.”
Apart from the cliché, the sexism:
Can people just be accountable for themselves, please?
Why do women always have to do the extra work for men’s shortcomings?
When has a candidate’s husaband EVER been portrayed this way?
But above all — If men had to stand on their own two feet, and didn’t encounter a world full of helper girls, what WOULD they do??
Soprano2
Kept meaning to share this, too – a performance of Jake Runestad’s “Please Stay“. We sang it a couple of years ago, every time I listen to it I cry a little bit. Something to share with anyone who’s depressed and thinking bad things about themselves. We’re doing his song “Into the Light” at the Carnegie Hall concert. His pieces kind of shimmer.
Citizen Alan
@Amir Khalid: Worst Jonathan Kent ever. He literally killed himself in order to emotionally manipulate his son out of using his powers for heroic purposes.
Also, my single biggest problem with Superman as a character is that he is completely unbelievable. Not the superpowers. I can believe that a space alien can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes. But I find it nearly inconceivable that such an alien could be raised from infancy by wholesome white farmers from Kansas and not be a raging bigot who would spend his free time exterminating caravans from Central America and razing inner city slums to the ground.
I don’t see how you get someone who believes in Truth and Justice out of contemporary Kansas instead of “The American Way” as envisioned by The Homelander.
zhena gogolia
@Old School: our seemingly straitlaced English teacher took us to see it on the big screen! We were thrilled!
Soprano2
*Face Palm* Now I see we made the Washington Post for punishing that student. We only ever make the national news for embarrassing stuff.
JPL
ACYN’s twitter feed is on fire today. He’s following the hearing on DC crime. Rep. Crockett from TX is on fire and as she says she calls them like she sees them. She needs to be more prominent in our party.
Here’s just one link.
For more of her responses follow Acyn (@Acyn) / Twitter
Manyakitty
@Betsy: look at Rudy as exhibit A 😂
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays: Among young evangelicals there’s a lot of anxiety about whether they’re really holy enough. I think they are genuinely afraid of hell.
Jackie
@JPL: She’s interviewed on various MSNBC shows pretty regularly. I like her spunk. She first came to attention in early 2022 as one of the state representatives who fled Texas to DC trying to boycott a law from being passed.
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
This is less unbelievable than you think. Not all White Midwestern farmers are bigots. Bigots may outnumber decent people, but there are plenty of decent people out there. Given that Ma and Pa Kent decided to adopt a baby who was obviously an extraterrestrial, they’re far more likely to be among the non-bigoted minority.
Matt McIrvin
@artem1s: You don’t think they’ll gain more from reactionaries deciding to go to Florida instead of somewhere else? Like the Chick-Fil-A of tourism? Or do they all go there already?
Of course it’s complicated because they’re also convincing the same people NOT to go to Disney World, which is one of the state’s biggest draws. I’m wondering if Universal is hoping to capitalize on this just by keeping their heads down and getting the “non-woke” brand by default (and because Harry Potter is suddenly cool for conservatives now).
Marmot
@Salty Sam: Yeah, I don’t disagree really. That motto lost its power here a long time ago.
But is Austin less cool nowadays? I feel like it is. It’s certainly less weird. But I’m not young anymore, and the olds have been saying “it was cooler back in the day” for as long as I’ve been here.
Citizen Alan
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve taken the position that white evangelicals worship Satan but are to ignorant and Bible-illiterate to realize it. “Whited sepulchers” is what Jesus would have called them.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: Maine aapka namak khaya…
Jager
@oatler:
My brother-in-law grew up on a huge ranch and knows the business of raising and breeding cattle, etc. He thinks Yellowstone is ridiculous. He said, let’s start with the entire cast in jeans, t-shirts, and regular shirts and Costner has a goddamn Carhart jacket on in the heat of summer. number two he was a partner in one of the top Angus Bulls in the world and he never saw anybody in a tux at a cattle sale.
Citizen Alan
@Roger Moore: I’m somewhat amused by the head-canon that Jonathan and Martha Kent are actually hippie farmers who moved to Smallville from California in their early twenties to do organic farming and that’s how Clark grew up to be the utterly decent and fair-minded Superman we all know and love.
lowtechcyclist
So is DeSantis an aquatic mammal, or some sort of reptile? Fishing for an answer here. ;-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: You grew up in Mississippi, right? You aren’t a racist POS, right? Why can’t that happen in Kansas? Just saying…
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes indeed.
कितने आदमी थे ?
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: apologies
also, Casey DeSantis is no Jackie Kennedy OR Jackie O
“stop trying to make capes happen, Casey!”
schrodingers_cat
@Ramona: Indeed!
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen Alan:
My cousins were raised by wholesome white ranchers in rural Cowley County, Kansas, and somehow didn’t become raging bigots. So it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
There go two miscreants
@lowtechcyclist: toxic algae bloom.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist: Heh. My thought went from piscine to “geographically raised” meaning he had a globe for a daddy and an atlas for a mommy.
And yet turned out dumb.
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
I also think Superman being superhuman has something to do with it. Our human differences are pretty minor compared to the difference between any human and a Kryptonian. As long as he’s decent enough not to see himself as deserving to rule because he’s better than the rest of us, he probably wouldn’t see our racial and ethnic differences as significant.
Steve in the ATL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
180 comments in the thread and no one has said “Gretchen, stop trying to make Casey DeSantis happen! It’s not going to happen!”
Balloon Juice is going to hell….
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: Jeffro at 182 is close enough. just sayin
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Don’t forget Pandora’s Box.
Cameron
@lowtechcyclist: …washed in on the red tide….a turtle that had been genetically modified by exposure to the Deepwater Horizon spill….
Steve in the ATL
@JPL:
yes indeed, though it wasn’t there when I posted my comment!
Confidential to Jeffro: nice work!
Jerszy
Y’know, in all the controversy & ink spilled over Yellowstone, I’ve never seen the *contemporary* rape that the show enables addressed anywhere.
This show was tied to Taylor Sheridan’s directorial debut, “Wind River” – an excellent film. Unfortunately, its distribution rights were sold to The Weinstein Company, and it was the last hit that company had before Harvey was exposed as the demonic force he was. The right to distribute “Wind River” contained a subsidiary right: the right to executive produce, finance, & distribute (or arrange for distribution of) Taylor Sheridan’s next project.
Well, Weinstein’s CEO (known as “third Weinstein Brother”) arranged to “sell off” that ‘next project’ right to a bogus “third party”, with an understanding that it would get conveyed back to his next company. Then Sheridan sold his show to the Paramount channel, with a guaranteed season sold. THEN the Weinstein CEO’s lawyers came forward with the “producer right”, and they were able to sleaze into producer position in name only, with zero input on anything creatively, and “finance” a tv project with the rare luxury of zero risk in the lending, and a nice vig on top for providing the sure-investment money for it. They also get the same sweetheart deal on all spin-offs.
The important gist to this scheme is this: The “Yellowstone” franchise empire should have deservedly been the sweetest, most lucrative plum in the Weinstein Company estate, and should have rightfully gone into the pot to pay HARVEY’S VICTIMS. Instead, some sleazebags have gamed the system and raped these women a second time while unjustly enriching themselves. And the viewers are (unwittingly) supporting this crime.
Chief Oshkosh
@Citizen Alan: Dude, take a deep breath. Please consider that contemporary Kansas is a lot different than when Superman was originally conceived in the 1930s. Heck, probably there were still Kansas free staters still living when Superman premiered. Parts of Kansas were progressive, populist, and liberal, and recognized as such nationally. It’s quite believable that there were Woody Guthrie-like populist/progressive farmers living in Kansas in the 1910-1930s era, when Superman would’ve been raised by the Clarks.
RaflW
Really interesting read recently about a school district in the hills west of Denver that is figuring out if they want the rabidly right-wing school board they elected last year. This whole “Mom’s for liberty” (in which the definition of liberty is — to my eyes — indecipherable from authoritarian lock-step-ism) thing is happening all over the country, and a serious menace.
CaseyL
@Citizen Alan: If you don’t already know, there are any number of “Alternate Superman” stories/books, asking “What if…” he had been found and reared in other countries/cultures.
I think there’s one where he was raised in the USSR and became quite a devoted enforcer of Stalinism.
Chief Oshkosh
@Chief Oshkosh: And there still are progressive/populist/liberal farmers in Kansas! I don’t mean to imply otherwise!
Sadly, as with many states (NC, WI, OH, others), the conservative state legislature has been very successful in FUCKING EVERYTHING UP, including gerrymandering the hell out of the place.
Ken
@Cameron: Deep One hybrid seems plausible, what with that video of him unhinging his jaw.
Tony Jay
@Citizen Alan:
Apart from there being plenty of decent people in Kansas amidst whose number the Kent’s could be included, young Clark also spent a chunk of his teenage years in the 30th century seeing firsthand what a futuristic, multi-racial society would look like.
OTOH, before he morphed into the Big Blue Boy Scout, Superman was infamously a complete and utter dick to just about everybody, so there’s that.
AlaskaReader
@cain: As if a classical conservative is not an asshat…
eversor
@cain:
They know about the generational issue. Which is why all the hand wringing over the younger generations not only not being Christian but being actively hostile to it.
The catch is if you look at the National Conservatism manifesto it boils down to “if people have democracy and rights they won’t choose Christianity, so we need a Franco to enforce Christianity” and that’s the goal. Get an autocrat and use the power of the state to re-Christianize the entire nation by indoctrinating children and deny rights and benefits to non Christians or people who do things like get a divorce, be gay, live together not married, or slip from the Christ demanded gender/patriarchy/heirarchy. Along with taxing those outside of Christianity to pay for benefits for traditional Christian families who of course just get handouts and no money.
It’s a plan to create two classes of people, Christians who are citizens and then people who exist to be taxed to provide for Christians and who’s behavior and actions are criminalized and have no way to vote themselves out of it. There’s a logic to this. First it would indoctrinate all kids with school prayers, government prayers, Christian education from the ground up. Second a lot of people will simply “find the faith” just so as not to be a second class citizen or die in the streets. Third even people that are utterly against it will simply never do anything in public that could offend a Christian so all those behaviors will be supressed, or simply go underground depending on peoples appetite for risk.
This is actively being planned and put into place which is why Dreher, Tucker, Vermule, Ahmari, and all these others keep taking trips to Europe where they bassically plot with foreign nationals on how to pull it off. It’s why Orban and Putin banging the Bible all the time. It’s also well funded. If you wonder why someone like Peter Theil would be down for this well they aren’t going to tax him, they are going after working class single moms and couples that shack up and don’t go to church. The welfare state is also going away for a ton of people who won’t have any sort of workers rights at all. Rich people didn’t dream this up, Christians did, but it’s a sweet deal for the rich so they jumped into it.
It’s actually a flawless, and legal, way for them to get what they want and don’t think it won’t make it through the courts and after it will be to late to do anything. And since we aren’t willing to go after Christianity as the greatest threat we face we are aiding them each step of the way and might as well be chearing for it. It’s only flaw is that Orban and Putin are cynical manipulators and implemented these policies for foreign Christian consumption to cause chaos and break other states, not because they thought they would take off at home.
If we avoid this it will because the right screws it up, not getting out the vote, and as long as we have Christianity it’s a matter of when, not if we end up there.
cain
@Old School: half the class is probably sexually active.
CapnMubbers
@Kelly: Same here. I relocated to the St. George area after the Paradise fire. Pioneer Day and statues of the enterprising Mormon settlers in “historical” settings promote the empty land myth. There was a huge outcry when Dixie State changed its name to Utah Tech last year due to consideration of people other than straight White, Christian hard-working residents. (This corner of southwestern Utah was “settled” by Mormons and their Black slaves by direction of Brigham Young to grow cotton. He selected many former Southerners because of their experience.)
Jeffro
@JPL:
@Steve in the ATL:
thenk yew, thenk yew!
And for my next trick, I will note that it appears Lauren Boebert and her hubby are divorcin’. (see @patriottakes on Twitter for more info)
(cue video of LB lecturing women at a church to ‘chase Jesus, so that your husband will chase you chasin’ Jesus’ – no shit)
Sean
@Marmot: Agree. I feel like the weirdness of Austin has been reduced to rubble. It’s more expensive to live here than Dallas. There was a recent study showing entertainment/nightlife cost was on par with NYC. There’s nothing left here but overcrowded, overpriced venues, houses no one can afford, and those of us who have lived here long enough to hold on, slowly being priced out by the property tax increases. That and a city government that can’t govern because the state keeps ruling by fiat. I’d move on, but for work and various other reasons that’s a tough lift. It’s a drag. Maybe somewhere else will have more luck keeping it weird than we did.
Ken
@Chief Oshkosh: The Kents’ ages have varied, but they’re often portrayed as in their 40s when they find Kal-El, so they were born in the 1890s. That means their parents or grandparents had plenty of stories about “Bloody Kansas”.
Also, they would have been adults during the 1929 crash, so saw those effects clearly. Come to think of it, it’s a bit surprising they still had the farm — many were lost in the Depression.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus: True, but I am also acutely aware of what a statistical anomaly I am in terms of 53yo white guys from North Mississippi.
Jeffro
Also if anyone hasn’t read it yet, the story of Ms. Neuschafer’s recent “Golden Globe” sailing win is just amazing.
Even more amazing: she managed to rescue a rival whose boat had sunk!!
(Apologies if this has already been covered yesterday or earlier today!)
Citizen Alan
@Chief Oshkosh: Oh yeah, I have no problem with a progressive Kansas-raised Superman having liberal attitudes. It’s just that in all the more modern takes, he must have been raised in “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” era Kansas. It raises a question of “What did Jonathan Kent think of Obama becoming President?” since McCain carried that state by 15%, and 4 years later, Romney won it by nearly 20%.
JPL
@Jeffro: Oh my!
Citizen Alan
@CaseyL: I know. IIRC, they got John Cleese to write one where the ship landed in Britain, and he was raised by a middle class couple who taught him to never use his powers because “what would the neighbors think!”
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: They were probably inspired to get Cleese by the Monty Python bit about “Bicycle Repairman”, set in a world where everyone is Superman except for one man who has the extraordinary power to fix bicycles.
prostratedragon
What a beautiful, charming Little Mermaid! I like to take the little kid to the occasional kid’s movie, and will probably catch this one.
Miss Bianca
I started a long reply about the article I just finished about our school board shenanigans and then I tripped over the computer cord and crashed the computer and now I am just too depressed and angry and frankly still shell-shocked about how quickly things have been going south in our school district thanks to the right-wing ideologues running the joint now to be able to reconstruct the rant.
Let’s just say I am going to keep reporting on this shit even if it kills me. It’s all I can do.
Steeplejack
@eclare:
Another great one!
WaterGirl
@Baud: There was some Dolly Parton movie where someone asked her what kind of music she liked, and she replied: “I like both kinds, country and western.”
I remember that because it turned into a classic line because one of my friends was not fond of most vegetables – so it turned into “Ed likes both kinds of vegetables, corn and beans.”
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: sorry about the horrendous school board. It’s amazing how quickly the cascade of suck takes hold. Tripping on the cord like that just added insult to injury.
How long before they get voted out?
Old School
@WaterGirl:
It’s not Dolly Parton, but you might be thinking of The Blues Brothers.
Miss Bianca
@OverTwistWillie:
Love Deadwood – probably my favorite show. Have felt no desire to watch Yellowstone. At all.
Probably because I actually *live* in the modern-day frontier West (literally – I live in a “frontier county”, demographically speaking) and I get to see the real-life non-soap-opera version of these people and…let’s just say, that series sounds like it’s made for rural Red Staters, rich transplants like Costner et co, and urban cowboy wannabes, all of whom are a little too much into buying their own hype for my taste.
(altho’, horsies…)
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
I used to think that this would be one of the worlds best things to at least try, sailing around the world. Then I joined the US Navy. Been way north of the Arctic Circle, down to almost the equator and crossed the Atlantic 6 times, once ending up at the St Lawrence Seaway instead of Charleston, SC. After that was over for a while I bought a sailboat. I think that cured me of any desire to sail around the world. Alone. And I like the ocean and sailing.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: To say nothing of Barack Obama’s maternal grandparents – weren’t they from Kansas?
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: Are you familiar with North Carolina citizen-journalist Cheryl Christy Bowman? She’s been blogging about public education in her native Moore County, North Carolina since 2018.
Last December’s substation attacks in Moore County prompted Miss Bowman to compile a history of the political radicalization of Moore County. It’s titled “Timeline of Terror” (moorevoices.net).
Ms. Christy Bowman sees events in her County as part of a coordinated national pattern:
Christy Bowman covers a lot of ground in these timelines, and she is a very clear and efficient writer. I think she is up to Part 3 now.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I could feel my nostrils flare as if I had just stepped in shit, barefoot.
His human classes are not going well. No aptitude for that “human” thing at all.
I wonder if his skin has zippers, and we just can’t see them.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Something is oozing off of him, but it does not appear to be charm.
WaterGirl
@raven:
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: I have heard you mention her and I have been meaning to look at her blog – do I just find it under her name?
@Manyakitty: Not soon enough. I am hoping that the passage of the recent ballot issue, to go to all at-large representation rather than have the district be carved up into wards, essentially, might have the effect of getting some more (better) candidates to step up. If we had had at-large reps in the last election, the most noxious of these pests wouldn’t have been elected and a far more reasonable, if still conservative, candidate would have prevailed. And we’d all be better off for it.
barbequebob
@WaterGirl: actually, to purists of each genre, country music and western music are two separate things. Combining the two as if one was really more a marketing thing. This is what I learned years ago from listening to Cowbow Joe’s Radio Ranch. He played “Western Music”.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: I liked Silverado.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: What the heck is a EJMR poster?
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: Which job did you end up taking?
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I think moorevoices.net is Christy Bowman’s website. I found it just now by looking up her name.
Moore County has a population of a little under 100,000. It is In southern North Carolina about two hours east of Charlotte. Cumberland County, home of Ft. Bragg and Fayetteville, is just to the east. The Southern Pines golf complex is located in Moore County.
WaterGirl
@Old School: Apparently I remembered the line, but the not movie! Or not. Maybe it was in 9 to 5? I can hear her voice saying the words.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I enjoyed the remake of Monty Walsh, with Tom Selleck and Isabella Rosselini. Lots of beautiful scenery. The story is set in Montana, around the turn of the 20th century.
I have not seen the original done in the 1970s, that starred Lee Marvin in the title role.
Gravie
Born and raised n Florida, before it was condo-ized and colonized by the Reich Wing. There were plenty of problems to be sure, racism chief among them. But I got an excellent education and lived amid spectacular natural beauty. I am sickened by what this dour asshole has done to my home state.
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: good luck 🤞
evodevo
@Matt McIrvin: See Roll to Disbelieve blog for the story of one evangelical woman who made it out of the maelstrom..she talks about this subject a lot
Origuy
Compare the Flintstones’ theme to Beethoven’s Sonata number 17 in D minor, the “Tempest” sonata. I’ve keyed it up to where the theme starts.
Geminid
@evodevo: The blog Wartburg Watch alsohas a lot of critical reporting on various abuses of power within Evangelical churches and organizations.
Gvg
@Roger Moore: it also used to be more common when 1) right after WWII the results of bigotry were seen close up and personally by many people who came back and told their families and 2) the Midwest of my grandparents time was much more white and theoretically tolerant. By that I mean they thought they were tolerant when it wasn’t anywhere near impacting them and when they met their eventual southern son in law, they asked in genuine puzzlement how his fellow Floridians could treat negros like that….but now 70 years later Wisconsin is not so liberal anymore. The Midwest has produced some seriously nice liberals AND some raging demagogues such as McCarthy. Both popular. Both sides part of the regional culture.
note, I’ve never lived there, all knowledge is very second hand.
Matt McIrvin
@Tony Jay: Well, the Pre-Crisis version of him did…
Though I think they retcon all that again about once a year now so who knows what his history is now.
MazeDancer
Love the fact that Tiny D won Duval County/Jacksonville by 11 points.
And now the mayor is a Dem. And a woman.
Yay for Mayor Deegan!
Matt McIrvin
@Origuy: I was just looking up the classical origins of the Knight Rider theme (Glen Larson freely admits he lifted the main hook straight from “Cortège de Bacchus” from the ballet Sylvia by the 19th-century composer Léo Delibes).
Gvg
@WaterGirl: Blues Brothers not 9 to 5 and not Dolly.
Matt McIrvin
@Gvg:
My Nebraskan dad had that conversation with a white Southerner as a young man, and the guy immediately pointed out that in Nebraska they treated Native Americans exactly the same way, which was true and had apparently never occurred to him.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: The land I live on in Virginia was taken from the Natives in the 17th century, just as surely as the land west of the Mississippi was taken in the 19th. Americans live in the biggest and most successful colonial project ever.