Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Everybody saw this coming.

This fight is for everything.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Cole is on a roll !

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

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Extreme Cheese (Open Thread)

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Despite being something of an Anglophile who is wholeheartedly devoted to cheese, I had never heard of the Gloucestershire cheese roll until today. According to WaPo (gift link), the annual race is a world-famous, centuries-old tradition.

Contestants line up at the top of a steep hill (45 degrees!), and an official rolls a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down the slope. Contestants run, roll and fall after it, and the first to cross the finish line gets to keep the cheese. The competition often results in concussions, broken bones, internal injuries, etc., according the article.

The cheese has been clocked at speeds of 70 to 80 MPH! A 19-year-old Canadian won the women’s cheese roll this year. She was unconscious when she crossed the finish line but held the wheel aloft in triumph after emerging from the medical tent. Hey, it’s Double Gloucester!

Switching to a topic much stinkier than any cheese on earth, a poor soul at New York Magazine read Mo. Senator Josh Hawley’s terrible Manhood book, and you’ll be shocked to learn that, like many a pencil-necked keyboard warrior, the tome is considerably less butch than advertised:

Manhood is Hawley’s fantasy, and as such it is revealing. Remarkable for its chauvinist delusion and unparalleled in its sheer whininess, it is a study, too, in personal failure. Since the 43-year-old Hawley entered the U.S. Senate in 2019, he has earned a reputation for hyperconservative political views with a fixation on the nefarious influence of Big Tech. Hawley, though, is not the leader he tells other men to be. Any serious accounting of his record must conclude he is a coward. Before the attack on the Capitol, Hawley cheered on crowds; later that day, he ran away from them in the Senate. Manhood does not rescue his image. The book itself is a gutless wonder. Masculinity cannot fail but rather can only be failed by others. It is strong enough to save the nation, but too weak to protect itself from “Epicurean liberalism,” Hawley’s term for a mythical ideology focused on the pursuit of personal happiness above all else.

It sucks that we have to endure the ongoing attempt to subvert American democracy in favor of authoritarian rule by mostly white, hard-right Christian nationalists, but it would be infinitely more tolerable if the fascists weren’t such spoiled, whiny motherfuckers. Wah-wah-wah! God, I’m so sick of them!

Speaking of spoiled, whiny motherfuckers, did anyone see the Succession series finale? I thought it was absolutely perfect. I’ll say no more about it in this post but would love to hear what you thought in comments if you’ve seen it. Kindly warn fellow commenters with a spoiler alert before discussing!

Otherwise, open thread!

Reader Interactions

188Comments

  3. 3.

    opiejeanne

    The annual cheese roll is parodied in one of Terry Pratchett’s books, when one of the cheeses being rolled has become sentient. It exits the course and no one can catch it, and makes a brief reappearance later before disappearing. I think it’s in the Tiffany Aching series of books.

  5. 5.

    Tinare

    I’m not sure where I saw it, but I recently watched a documentary about a woman who won the cheese roll three years in a row. It also talked about all of the injuries — broken bones, dislocated shoulders, etc. — that are common ever year. Just a crazy event.

    Succession spolier – of course the emptiest suit won, that’s corporate America for sure.

  6. 6.

    RaflW

    The less said about Josh Hawley, other than that he ran away from the very people he egged on, the better.

    He’s a twit.

    twit (n.) “foolish, stupid and ineffectual person,” 1934, British slang, popular 1950s-60s, crossed over to U.S. with British sitcoms. It probably developed from twit (v.) in the sense of “reproach,” but it may be influenced by nitwit.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    I’ve tried watching Succession many times.  In almost every case I end up switching the channel to something else because the family members are so abhorrent.  That’s me being uneasy with ogres but I’m OK with that I guess.

  9. 9.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Epicurean liberalism,” Hawley’s term for a mythical ideology focused on the pursuit of personal happiness above all else.

    They really are cartoon villains who think happiness is a bad thing.

  11. 11.

    dww44

    As it is an Open Thread, there is a 3 episode series (somewhat dramatized in this HIstory Channel TV offering) on FDR that began last night.  The first 2 hour episode is being repeated at 6 p.m. on the cable channel ahead of episode 2 at 8 p.m.

    I highly recommend the first episode because it refreshes one’s memory and increases one’s understanding of how FDR became the New Deal President.  Several well known contemporary historians weigh in.

    We need, as liberal Democrats, to do a better job of arguing for our version of government that promotes policies to help the average every day American.  Particularly those of us who live amongst those who denigrate it all the time.

  12. 12.

    captnkurt

    @Tinare: You’re thinking of the Netflix show “We Are The Champions”!

     

    Betty, you should seek out this show about oddball competitive sports. Chili-pepper eating contests, dog-dancing, competitive yo-yoing, and in Episode 1, the infamous Gloucester Cheese Roll!

  14. 14.

    Michael Bersin

    Josh Hawley (r). Yeah, in Missouri we know him as the “ladder climber” who is the third senator from Virginia.

    His successor as Missouri Attorney General, Eric Schmitt (r), also spun his authoritarian tenure into a U.S. Senate seat. His incompetence as Missouri Attorney General was about the same as Hawley’s.

    Last week in Jackson County Circuit Court (16th Judicial Circuit):

    “[….]

    Former Attorney General Eric Schmitt twice directed the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District to rescind its COVID-19 mitigation measures, even though its Board of Education had validly adopted those measures under Missouri statutes giving the Board of Education broad powers to control and govern the School District’s operations. The Attorney General did not identify statutes or constitutional provisions to support his order, resting his directive instead on a judgment in another case to which no school district was a party, and whose rationale did not apply to the School District. The Attorney General then amplified his orders on social media, encouraging parents and students to defy the authority granted to the Board of Education by Missouri law. Parents and students followed the Attorney General’s lead, leading to even greater confusion than the pandemic had already caused.

    Aside from lacking any authority over locally elected boards of education, the Attorney General’s orders did not follow Missouri law and were therefore without legal force or effect. Neither Attorney General Schmitt nor his successor has disavowed the orders, and in fact, the Attorney General continues to insist that school districts lack the very authority granted them under Missouri law.

    [….]”

    Eric Schmitt (r) had instituted an email snitch line – to gather complaints and photographic “proof” about school districts trying to mitigate the pandemic. He filed lawsuits against a large number of Missouri school districts. The Lee’s Summit, Missouri school district persisted in challenging Schmitt (r).

    This being Missouri a number of individuals utilized the provided email to snitch on their kids’ private and parochial schools. Think about that for a second. Others turned in photo evidence of them flipping of Eric Schmitt (r) or of their family pets wearing masks.

    Eric Schmitt (r): losing again

  15. 15.

    TheOtherHank

    I haven’t watched Succession. I couldn’t make myself watch a fictionalized version of the world Murdoch built and view it as entertainment. They’re shitty people doing shitty things in a world that is too much like the one I live in. Game of Thrones and The Sopranos were far enough removed from my lived experience that I did enjoy them. I tried to like Breaking Bad but ran aground on the every character being horrible problem.

    I’m not trying to crap on those who did enjoy Succession. It just wasn’t for me.

  16. 16.

    Gravenstone

    @zhena gogolia: Suspect those drones hitting Moscow are fairly short range. Meaning the calls are coming from “inside the building”, so to speak. Congrats, Vlad! May you reap what you’ve sown.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    “Epicurean liberalism,” Hawley’s term for a mythical ideology focused on the pursuit of personal happiness above all else.

    The social conservative agenda can usually be summed up as, “Someone is enjoying themselves and I hate it.“

  20. 20.

    West of the Rockies

    Participating in the cheese event?  Hard no.  The winner did a brutal face-plant at the end of that clip.

  21. 21.

    eclare

    That cheese roll is insane!  And I thought the running of the bulls was dangerous.

    I never watched Succession, it just didn’t appeal to me.  But several people, I think you were one of them, Betty, recommended Somebody Somewhere, and I’m enjoying that.  I saw the actress who plays Sam interviewed on a talk show, and before this she was a cabaret singer in NYC.  I am still in the first season, no spoilers!

  22. 22.

    Old School

    Google tells me a 5 lb wheel of Double Gloucester Cheese can be bought for $97.  So a 7 lb wheel is probably worth getting a concussion for.

  24. 24.

    Raven

    We stumbled on a deserted beach on St Helena Island! I’ve got a line out but nothing in 4 hours but I don’t really care.  It’s our 24th Anniversary and it’s nice to be fishing with my wife and the dog with no one in sight!

  28. 28.

    eclare

    @Kelly:

    More craziness!  My uncle did mini triathlons, which for swimming often had a mass start at a lake.  He said there was a real chance of getting kicked in the head.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    Kindly warn fellow commenters with a spoiler alert before discussing!

    OK, spoiler alert:

    In the penultimate scene, Bob gets knocked unconscious by a golf ball. The scene fades, and:

    Bob wakes up, in bed, next to his wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette), whereupon we discover that the entire series had been a dream, presumably brought on by Bob’s eating Japanese food right before bedtime.

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    @Suzanne:

    The social conservative agenda can usually be summed up as, “Someone is enjoying themselves and I hate it.“

    Variant: Someone (or some group) I don’t like is getting stuff that I already get, but I don’t want them to have it.

  31. 31.

    StringOnAStick

    @Frankensteinbeck: Seriously.  I have proudly claimed epicurianism as my personal philosophy for several years, but he just made the label even more appealing to me by sticking ‘liberal’ in front of it.

  32. 32.

    Mike in NC

    We tried watching Succession a while back but everybody on the show came across as total assholes. Too much like real life. Gave up after a few episodes. Liked Brian Cox in other situations.

    We’ve lived in a pretty sleepy beach town for the last 15 years. Long road trips have thankfully been few and far between. I can no longer put up with driving on 6 or 8 lane freeways jammed with tractor-trailers and other vehicles passing us at 80 MPH. Too much of that in NoVA. Thus I wasn’t thrilled to practically drive from one end of North Carolina to the other to reach the Blue Ridge Mountains where our friends settled a few months ago after fleeing DeSantisland. We came home last night after about 9 hours on the road. No traffic jams but just a long, tedious grind.

  34. 34.

    StringOnAStick

    @eclare: Getting kicked in the ear under water is how I had an eardrum badly torn as a kid, and why I have severe hearing loss in that ear now thanks to the huge and ignored for 2 weeks inner ear infection that happened after the injury; once my balance went, my parents paid attention finally.  These events can be the source of injuries that dog people forever, but hey, chance to get on TV and social media, right?  A permanently partially detached eardrum is why I gave up whitewater kayaking.

  35. 35.

    Ken

    The cheese roll reminded me of a different Pratchett line, I think in Interesting Times. Cohen the Barbarian says something like “The local peasants can make a delicious stew out of weeds and cow hooves. You know what that tells me? That the aristocrats nick all the meat and vegetables.”

  36. 36.

    eversor

    @captnkurt:

    Chili pepper contests are also a fast track to the hospital or a heart attack.  I saw that show though.

    I do chili pepper contests though.  I also grow my own.  The SO has had some mistakes grabbing the wrong powder at times though…

  39. 39.

    mali muso

    Vis-a-vis the “manhood” discussion, the Slacktivist has been taking apart one of the Xtian patron saints of toxic masculinity, John Piper, in his blog recently.  Brief Interludes with Hideous Men part 2

    …

    This sounds like a sweet deal for men. It means you’re in charge by virtue of having been born in charge, and hierarchy brings all manner of privileges. You get paid more. Your legal rights are better protected. Society is literally designed to meet your desires and appetites and emotional needs. Plus someone else is going to make you food, clean up after you, launder your clothes, and tend to your children. Being “above” and being deferred to by default is, all things considered, a pretty terrific arrangement for you. It’s good to be the king.

    …

    So guys like Piper aren’t able to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the privileges of hierarchy. They must, instead, be ever-vigilant and alert for any hint that they are not receiving the constant deference they imagine to be their due. Even something as simple as asking for directions to the freeway becomes an anxiety-inducing incident in which the man must be on guard lest he unwittingly allow some random woman to “compromise” his masculinity.

    Part of this anxiety is just the bog-standard fear and resentment that any human comes to feel toward others they know themselves to have wronged or harmed or treated unfairly. The awareness, however dim, that patriarchal hierarchy is a sweet deal for men carries with it the recognition, however dim, that it’s a lousy deal for women and thus also carries with it — and here the dimness is deliberately chosen and tended — a vague sense of guilt. If that guilt isn’t permitted to produce the repentance and atonement it’s designed to produce, then it will fester into fear and resentment. That’s part of what we’re seeing in Piper’s fight-or-flight terror at the thought of asking a woman for directions.

    But Piper also chose this illustration deliberately because of the way this particular interaction — a man needing to ask a woman for help that the woman is able and qualified to supply — threatens to undermine the hierarchy he seeks to preserve. Here the roles of king and subject are reversed, with the ruler approaching the commoner as a supplicant. “She has superior knowledge that the man needs and he submits himself to her guidance,” he concedes, warily. This is dangerous territory. It’s obviously true that this particular woman’s “superior knowledge” in this particular instance is not due to some innate superiority that she possesses or to any corresponding innate inferiority on the man’s part. Her superior knowledge is circumstantial and contingent, as is the man’s need here to invert the usual hierarchy and “submit himself to her guidance.” But now that the idea has been introduced — or acknowledged — that deference can be circumstantial and contingent, what’s to stop people from just galloping off into a chaotic world, unshaped by normative hierarchies, a world governed only by mutuality and reciprocity? Can you imagine such a thing?

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    Despite being something of an Anglophile who is wholeheartedly devoted to cheese, I had never heard of the Gloucestershire cheese roll until today.

    Congrats on your new-found knowledge!

  42. 42.

    The Moar You Know

    I had never heard of the Gloucestershire cheese roll until today.

    How is that possible?  It’s one of the most injury-causing sports events held anywhere.  Amazing that (so far as I know) nobody’s been killed.

    Plus cheese.

  43. 43.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Suzanne:
    “Josh Hawley’s accidentally gender-neutral manhood”
    is the title of a WaPo review last week

    Has he read  the Declaration of Independence?

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    It sucks that we have to endure the ongoing attempt to subvert American democracy in favor of authoritarian rule by mostly white, hard-right Christian nationalists, but it would be infinitely more tolerable if the fascists weren’t such spoiled, whiny motherfuckers

     

    No lie told

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    Certain the cheese race has been brought up more than once here in the past.

    Moving on, one could do worse than The Crown Prince, currently on Freevee (two 90 minute episodes). Admit approaching with some trepidation of it being sappy, gooey or Hallmarky, Being a history and period piece nerd, was glad to discover there’s more to it than that. B to, in parts, B+. Only trailer could find on a quick search is, oddly enough, dubbed in German but gives the flavor regardless. Presume after viewing that moustache wax was a major budgeted item.

    Also, while in no way, shape or form my cuppa (in fact did not choose to watch it), noting for Idris Elba and/or Tilda Swinton completists Three Thousand Years of Longing is now on Prime.

  49. 49.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Wait wut…the pursuit of happiness is a bad thing? That’s losing the plot completely. Because I have a hazy recollection that, like, that phrase appears in some important document from America’s founding era.

  50. 50.

    CaseyL

    Just read an interesting article in the UK Guardian: researchers have found evidence of plague in a mass grave dating to 4000 years ago. It’s the earliest evidence of plague found in Britain.  The article states that this was the pneumonic version, not the bubonic (a mutation that didn’t occur until much later) but it was still highly contagious and widely lethal.

    The article makes a point that I had sorta-kinda known, but wasn’t sure about:  Bronze Age British cultures were NOT known for their violence.  Finding a mass grave was itself unusual enough to warrant additional research, which is how  researchers found the plague DNA in the victims’ teeth.

    So, two interesting things: Plague was widespread in Europe much earlier than anyone thought; and Bronze Age people weren’t nearly as violent as their Iron Age successors.

    It would be interesting to explore whether the rise in violence, particularly organized violence, was a consequence of having “better” weapons with which to kill, or a consequence of the advancing urbanization that enabled social stratification along with the technology to produce those “better” weapons.

  51. 51.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Alison Rose:

    I guess it’s nice to know the US hasn’t completely cornered the market on being a total dumbass for no reason. 

    Sadly this is too long for a rotating tag. :)

  52. 52.

    Central Planning

    Amazon Prime Video has an old series, Glutton for Punishment with Bob Bloomer, where he attends the cheese rolling competition to win it. Season 2, Episode 1. The series is funny and interesting, and you can get an idea what the competition is like.

  53. 53.

    jonas

    So lemme get this straight. According to Hawley, the problem with America today is that too many people are these “I’ll do what I like and screw the common good”-type” girly men or something. Uh huh. And yet when *his* voters were asked to take some basic precautions to protect themselves and others during a global pandemic, or maybe accede to some common sense gun control measures to prevent mass shootings, they’re all like “But muh freedum! I’ll do what I like and you’re not the boss of me!!” and he was all for that.

    Something tells me the spoiled-ass, Harvard-educated weenie Senator from Missouri doesn’t know the first thing about courage, sacrifice, or manhood.

  54. 54.

    C Stars

    @opiejeanne:

    @Doug:

    I am lucky enough to have recently discovered the delights of Terry Pratchett books. I’d tried before and not enjoyed a book or two featuring Sam Vimes, but recently came across the Nanny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching books and am much enjoying them. I just finished A Hatful of Sky and assumed when I read it that it was based on a real tradition in England. Et voila

     

    ETA I Shall Wear Midnight, not A Hatful of Sky. Both very fun books!

  55. 55.

    JaneE

    Is it just me or does “Epicurean liberalism” sound a whole lot like old-school libertarianism?  Or maybe Alistair Crowley?

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They are cartoon villains but I think they can’t figure out how to be happy so they want everyone else to be as unhappy as they are.

    IOW you are correct!

  57. 57.

    Kelly

    @StringOnAStick: As near as I can tell I’m the only one of my crowd of outdoor adventurers from my teens and twenties that hasn’t had an old injury limiting activities now that I’m 67. My dear departed father said “It’s better to be lucky than good.” I’m hoping I hold up as well as Mom. She’s 87. Until January this year she’d see the doc once a year, be told everything is fine, see you next year. Since January a TIA, circulation trouble leading to wounds that needed a lot of care to heal. In a few minutes I’m driving her in to see a plastic surgeon the dermatologist needs to help him remove a basal cell skin cancer from her cheek.

  59. 59.

    The Moar You Know

    it would be infinitely more tolerable if the fascists weren’t such spoiled, whiny motherfuckers.

    Hitler had over 50 million people killed because, fundamentally, he couldn’t get into art school.

    Spoiled, check.  Whiny, check.

    Me, personally, I am finding these people and their culture of infinite grievance beyond tiresome.  Shut up and try mowing your yards or doing something else helpful for once.

  61. 61.

    jonas

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: ​
      Yeah, I seem to remember that popping up somewhere in the founding documents as well. Not that it matters. As we all know, the only thing written by the Founders that we need to care about today is the 2A, and then only if we ignore the entire first clause, which was clearly meant as a joke.

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    I don’t believe that is the providence of any country, I think humanity as a whole has a penchant for being a total dumbass for no reason.

  63. 63.

    neabinorb

    I learned about the cheese roll on Wait,Wait some time ago. And, yes, the Succession finale was perfect. The Roys showed some human attributes and then failed miserably.

  64. 64.

    CaseyL

    @jonas: That’s pretty much their attitude towards Jesus: the only important thing he did was die, and so all that hippie dippy nonsense he talked about while he was alive can be disregarded.

  65. 65.

    eversor

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    They don’t view happiness the way we do.  For them happiness comes from the god ordained natural order.  So happiness is strong gender roles, patriarchy, heirarchy, rigid societal stations, chastity, purity, sexuality hidden, and on and on.  They also can’t be happy if the media available doesn’t reflect all this.   It’s why they all go to church each Sunday with each other and have a blast.  Then they go home and spend the rest of the week seething with hatred at everything else.

    Ultimately the same things don’t make us happy.  In a society that would make us happy they will spend all their time miserable, stressed, upset, and emotionally in pain.  If they controlled society the situations would be reversed.  That’s why this cannot be resolved in any reasonable way where everyone is happy.

  69. 69.

    Hoodie

    Isn’t Hawley the guy photographed prancing about in a wine shop?  That picture could be in the dictionary next to the entry for “epicurean.”

  70. 70.

    eversor

    @CaseyL:

    Oh they loved Jesus endorsemen of patriarchy, slavery, heirarchy, the role of women in society, talking about bringing the sword, damning people.  Some of us of course try to pretend none of that happened.  But if you think women shouldn’t have to submit and be second class and that this  must be enforced by violence you aren’t following Jesus.

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    I got my one side hearing loss by standing next to a explosion of a motor vehicle engine burning nitromethane. Have had a 30% loss of hearing on that side and single frequency tinnitus 24 hrs a day for the last 10 yrs. Good times.

  73. 73.

    opiejeanne

    @captnkurt: Yoyo competitions used to be A Sort of Big Thing. The champions came to our elementary school and demonstrated tricks that we could do, and a bunch that no one should be able to do.

  75. 75.

    villiageidiocy

    @Doug: I never realized this! I’ve enjoyed his books without internet commentary, I’m not always sure I want to read what others say since I like to re-read them and discover new references to the real world as the years go by. It keeps the reading fresh and they are dense that way.

    Of the Discworld series, Tiffany is one of my favorite sets – I’d already read them but I listened to them during the worst of the pandemic as I fell asleep. It’s also amusing to have a good reader do the proper pronunciation of the Mac Nac Feegles brogue.

  77. 77.

    brendancalling

    My friend Scott— one of my first and best friends in Philly—passed away last night. Our bands used to play together. We worked closely on the Scrapple. TV project. He was a brilliant writer, highly-skilled in post-production, and one of the funniest people I’ve had the pleasure to know. I am lucky that I got to visit with him—twice—this weekend. I’m not going to go into details, but folks—if you have a serious health condition as Scott did—please go to the doctor, get it checked out, and do what your doctor tells you to do. Scott didn’t do these things, and the world is poorer for it.

    Scott’s main project at Scrapple TV was “Life Lessons with AP Ticker.” Here are two of my favorites: “My First Kiss” and “The Kernel of Truth.”

  79. 79.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @HumboldtBlue: OT but the video won’t play. I’ve had this issue of random videos not playing, but when I try it when someone else posts it it works. Of if I go to the main tweet it will play.

    And don’t get me started on the weird, very inconsistent “sensitive content” warnings on replies – it can be nothing, or words like ass or dummy.  No rhyme or reason.

  81. 81.

    HumboldtBlue

    @brendancalling:

    Maybe you’ll know this. Back in the 90s there was a furniture restoration show on PBS that featured two Philly dudes, one a tall good-looking guy who I think always wore a bandana on his head and the other guy a sloppy, slovenly Jerry-Garcia lookalike.

    They took old pieces of furniture and rebuilt them doing all the carpentry, upholstery, painting, whatever was needed, are you familiar with them at all?

    Because I can find no trace of them online. I wanna say they were in Fishtown.

  82. 82.

    Nukular Biskits

    This reminded me of one summer when me, my brother and two cousins (who were visiting for the summer) built “battle wagons” from the scrap lumber we pilfered out of a great-uncle’s barn and the wheel/axle/tongue assemblies from a couple of old Radio Flyers.

    We dragged these behemoths to our great-uncle’s cow pasture and would race downhill ramming each other Mad Max style towards the catfish pond.

    And, yes, more than once, the winners (losers?) wound up in the pond.

    How we survived that summer, I’ll never know.

  86. 86.

    Mike E

    @Mike in NC: Murphy to Manteo is an itinerary best achieved through the air, but you knew that.

    @brendancalling: My condolences to you on the loss of your friend

  88. 88.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @HumboldtBlue: not your fault at all! I’m just mad that a free app I never signed up for isn’t working right. I want my money back!

  90. 90.

    VOR

    @Ken: I once visited the city of Porto in Portugal. They are famous for making tripe palatable. The story I heard was the armies in the Napoleonic Peninsular wars confiscated all the good food so the locals learned to make the leftovers edible.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    @CaseyL:

    It could also be more humans in the same area. That means that one has to interact with more of those filthy beings on a daily basis, those beings who actually want stuff, time and effort.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @jonas:

    Something tells me the spoiled-ass, Harvard-educated weenie Senator from Missouri doesn’t know the first thing about courage, sacrifice, or manhood.

    That something is reality.

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literlist

    @jonas:  @Ruckus: Something tells me the spoiled-ass, Harvard-educated weenie Senator from Missouri doesn’t know the first thing about courage, sacrifice, or manhood.

    Stanford, which I pedantically only mention because it reminds me of Kelsey Grammer’s dismissive delivery of “Well, if you want to go to school on the West Coast…” (and I couldn’t have gotten a visitor’s pass much less admission to either). I can actually imagine Ted Cruz saying that with utmost sincerity and more arrogance than Frasier Craine

  95. 95.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @HumboldtBlue: one of the joys of trips back to see family when I was young was listening to my Dad & uncles reminiscing about their exploits. One in particular was when they were ‘skiing” in North Dakota by towing each other with their jalopy Model A. Somehow my of my uncles was run over, and rather than say anything they just got him upstairs into bed. Thankfully their jalopies were lightweight and no permanent damage!

  96. 96.

    geg6

    I have yet to meet a MAGAT who isn’t the biggest coward walking upright.  Josh Hawley could be the poster boy for that.

    As for Succession, never watched and never will, but from what I’ve read about it, unless they all died slow, painful and lonely deaths in the finale, it cannot possibly be perfect.

  97. 97.

    Soprano2

    @Michael Bersin: Yeah, in Missouri we know him as the “ladder climber” who is the third senator from Virginia.

    I LOL’ed at this phrase, because it’s always the first thing I think of when I hear Hawley’s name – the man who lied about not using the AG’s job as a ladder to something higher. He’s supposed to be building a house down near Ozark, but I doubt it’s ever actually finished because I’m sure he doesn’t want his kids going to school down here!

    ETA – I’m glad they kept that case alive to clarify that MO school boards did indeed have the ability to impose things like mask mandates in their schools.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    I have NO idea.

    Nor do I give a rat’s ass to find out.

    Not that I have a rat’s ass to give, but still…..

  101. 101.

    geg6

    @eclare: ​
     
    It may have been me. I’m absolutely crazy about that show! There is nothing I don’t love about it.

  102. 102.

    CaseyL

    @Ruckus: Yes, indeedy.  Higher population density is rarely a good thing with humans (or a number of other species, to be honest).

  103. 103.

    mrmoshpotato

    OT – I find those silent “You just got caught vaping” PSAs to be hilarious in their stupidity.

  108. 108.

    Soprano2

    @eversor: They also can’t be happy if the media available doesn’t reflect all this.   It’s why they all go to church each Sunday with each other and have a blast.  Then they go home and spend the rest of the week seething with hatred at everything else.

    Lots of truth here. I think one of the main reasons they’re freaking out so much now is because they know they lost the popular culture war, so the only way they can think of to “win” it is to use the law to force their cultural wishes onto everyone else. They want to make the world comfortable for themselves, so they don’t ever have to see or hear anything that is upsetting to them or that makes them uncomfortable.

  113. 113.

    TriassicSands

    I’m watching “Clarence and Ginni Thomas (Destroy America) on Frontline. The look at Clarence’s childhood is very revealing and may explain a lot about just what a damaged, evil person he is. The same goes for Ginni and her John Birch loving parents.

    One thing revealing about Thomas’ childhood is just how harmful racism is. And it wasn’t limited to white on black racism, but he also suffered from the “brown bag rule.” If an African American’s skin was the same as that of a brown bag or lighter, that made them superior to darker-skinned Blacks, which included Thomas. His early years may explain why his life seems to one of revenge against those who wronged him including other African Americans.

    One interesting minor detail appears when Frontline quotes a letter to the editor (in the 60s) from Ginni’s mom that whines about Republicans being victims. Gee, those poor Republicans, they’ve been treated so unfairly for so many decades. Clarence victim (in truth). Ginni victim (in her diseased brain). Together they have an opportunity to get even.

    It’s not difficult to understand why someone with Clarence’s childhood background could end up being such a horrible human being. He’s opposed to Affirmative Action because, while it may have gotten him into Yale Law Schoo, it didn’t get him the desired high paying job with a major law firm. He joins the Republicans because there he can be a front helping to shield them from their racism and, since there are very few Black Republicans to compete with, he can rise more quickly. He is singularly about himself and, thus, fits nicely in the GOP fold.

  120. 120.

    Jeffro

    @eclare:My uncle did mini triathlons, which for swimming often had a mass start at a lake.  He said there was a real chance of getting kicked in the head.

    This is absolutely true – saw it happen first hand.

    I was a spotter (in my kayak) for the water portion of Ms. Fro’s first and only mini-tri, and not only were there people who got kicked in the head…there were entrants who couldn’t swim.  Not kidding.  I pulled them over to my boat when they tired themselves out dog-paddling.

    Like, “were ya REALLY going to just dog-paddle for a mile???!?”

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    My niece said this weekend that she LOVED Succession, thought the ending was great, but that she is very sorry that the show has ended.

  123. 123.

    Jeffro

    @HumboldtBlue: co-signed!

    Me and my neighborhood buddies used to do “James Bond escapes” on our bicycles up at the school playground.

    You pedal really fast, head for the monkey bars, and at the last second, grab the monkey bars & let the bike go out from under you.

    I’m kind of surprised none of us ripped our arms off.  Maybe we weren’t going as fast as we thought we were?  =)

  125. 125.

    Doug

    @C Stars: ​
     

    I think that the witches’ books and the Tiffany Aching set (and of course their overlap) are my favorite runs within Discworld. I, too, came to them rather late, but then I read them all in publication order. So far I’ve only gone back to read some favorite bits, but I will probably pick up some complete novels and then discover the delights of coming back to visit.

    I wrote about them all here:

    https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/tag/terry-pratchett/

  127. 127.

    Citizen Alan

    @TriassicSands: This is why I have such absolute contempt for the man. Clarence thomas heights affirmative action immediately no one in the history of the term has benefited from it as much as him. Because at the time of his nomination, there were scores of African American judge is more qualified than him to sit on the Supreme Court, and there. Were scores of conservative judges more qualified than him to sit on the supreme court. But only clarence thomas checked the unique box of being a black man who was also a white supremacist.

  131. 131.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:

    I’m kind of surprised none of us ripped our arms off. Maybe we weren’t going as fast as we thought we were?

    Your joints are also a lot stronger than you’re giving them credit for.  Consider the famous punishment of quartering, i.e. tearing a person limb from limb.  People talk about attaching a horse to each limb, but it turns out that isn’t enough; you actually need four teams of horses to do it.

  132. 132.

    Jeffro

    @eclare: Yes indeed.  I pulled two of those folks out plus one who got kicked so hard in the head that he was too dizzy to swim.  A couple of the other spotters also pulled out other kick-victims that day.

    I don’t know why they didn’t do more staggered starts back then; hopefully they do now!

  133. 133.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Roger Moore:

    People talk about attaching a horse to each limb, but it turns out that isn’t enough; you actually need four teams of horses to do it.

    Takes notes for later reference — remember… need more horses!

  136. 136.

    Alison Rose

    @Roger Moore: We really used to be a lot more creative, didn’t we? I mean, I’m against the death penalty in any and all cases, and I know we ended up with lethal injection because it’s supposedly “humane” (it is not), but like…man, drawing and quartering, now that showed some imagination.

    Although in a world where I supported DP, I’d still wanna go with George Carlin’s ideas: 1) Shoot them out of a high-speed catapult right into a brick wall; 2) Dip them in brown gravy and lock them in a small room with a wolverine who’s high on angel dust; 3) Boil people in oil, but do so in a stadium, lowering the person on a rope toward the boiling oil and let the crowd control the speed.

  137. 137.

    Jeffro

    OT but I see the Merriam-Webster dictionary twitter account (usually good for trolling right-wingers) is stirring shit up just for funsies today:

    PIN Number

    ATM Machine

    UPC Code

    LCD Display

    We regret to inform you that his phenomenon has a name: RAS Syndrome. Redundant Acronym Syndrome…Syndrome.

    And of course, one of the first tweets in response is…the departmental seal of the U.S. Department of Redundancy Department.  =)

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literlist

    apparently this is real, though is “defecting” still a thing?

    Oz Katerji @OzKaterji

    Remember Tara Reade that pro-Putin grifter who falsely accused Biden of sexual assault, a story people like Ryan Grim ran with, whose links to Russia were dismissed as an outrageous smear against an alleged survivor of assault? Well she’s just announced she has defected to Russia

  142. 142.

    cain

    @BlueGuitarist:

    Has he read the Declaration of Independence?

    Nope – like most conservatives, everything is performative. Everything is about how they are the mostest of the mostest of [christian, american, patriot, etc] etc. There is the reality of those concepts and then the fantasy land that is in their head where they are the true believers.

  143. 143.

    cain

    @CaseyL: So, two interesting things: Plague was widespread in Europe much earlier than anyone thought; and Bronze Age people weren’t nearly as violent as their Iron Age successors.

    Kind of makes sense – bronze is a much softer metal than iron. So the potential for violence is more. It’s how they killed all the Tuatha De Danaan.

  153. 153.

    Roger Moore

    @Alison Rose: ​
     
    I saw at least one state is trying to move to suffocation with pure nitrogen. It’s actually supposed to be a painless way to go, to the point that people accidentally exposed to pure nitrogen will pass out and die before they know anything is wrong. It’s also going to be very difficult to stop states from using it as a method, since pure nitrogen is very easily available for legitimate uses.

  160. 160.

    TriassicSands

    @Citizen Alan: But only clarence thomas checked the unique box of being a black man who was also a white supremacist.

    I’ve joked (painfully) for years that when Clarence looks in the mirror he sees a blond surfer. The Frontline show really illuminates a lot about the mysterious behavior of both Clarence and his wife.

    The Frontline video gives some insight into why Thomas might be so hostile to African Americans and Affirmative Action, which got him into Yale, but didn’t deliver the reward he sought. Coming out of Yale Law School, had he gotten a high-paying job at a top law firm, he might have turned out to be an entirely different person. However, his childhood looks so damaging that it is difficult to imagine him being a mentally healthy, generous human being.

  161. 161.

    Tony Jay

    @CaseyL:

    Apparently it wasn’t until the Indo-European waves hit Bronze Age Britain that the ‘barbaric warrior culture period’ as we understand it kicked off.

    ‘Proto-Biker Gangs of the Bronze Age’ as I’ve heard them described. Vandal Savage has a lot to answer for.

  162. 162.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I’ve been chatting about the Hudson-Deeds race with some friends. I used to think Hudson was going to win; now I’m not so sure. It looks like Democratic leaders are closing ranks around Deeds. Word is being put out that Hudson is hard to work with, and that she should have “waited her turn.” Misogyny? You decide.

    My landlord and his partner think that Hudson is simply brilliant. My friend Joan is a big Hudson fan, too, and she also loves Katie Porter. I told Joan that the dynamic in Hudson’s race reminds me of that in the Porter-Schiff contest.

    I am out of this one. Greene County is in Nick Freitas’s House of Delegates district, and Bryce Reeves’Senate district. But I’m in Spanberger’s Congressional District, so I won’t complain. The Special Masters giveth, and they taketh away.

  163. 163.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    there was a bit of an uproar about animal welfare, after a vid showing pigs being “suffocated” in a nitrogen bath, ( a supposed humane slaughter method), showed that it wasn’t.

  164. 164.

    sab

    @rikyrah: Being a boomer I was thinking ” the eighties had memorable music?” then I Googled it and they did. Also Rick Astley.

  168. 168.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: I think Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks has a real shot at that Maryland Senate nomination, especially if Rep. Raskin passes on the race. People have pooh-poohed the idea of a mere county executive running for Senator. But Alsobrooks was elected to run a county of 960,000 people. That’s about 200,000 more people than in a Congressional District.

  169. 169.

    sab

    @eclare: Michael Jackson was around as a talented musician when I was young ( granted he was a toddler then) so he doesn’t count.

  170. 170.

    C Stars

    @Chief Oshkosh: Thanks for the recommendation. There are so many freaking Terry Pratchett books that it is good to have someone point you in the right direction.

  171. 171.

    eclare

    @sab:

    Nothing he did matched Thriller, which was released in 1982.  A group of us were hanging out at a friend’s basement rec room when someone rushed in all excited, he had purchased the album.  We listened to it for hours…and then the video came out.

  173. 173.

    sab

    @eclare: Absolutely agree on Thriller, but he was a star when I had my first internship in Mississippi in 1972. We all sat around at lunch talking about how much we liked Jackson Five, and he was their lead singer. Adorable and talented.

    ETA  The Mozart of his genre.

  174. 174.

    Miss Bianca

    I knew about the Cheese Roll because, hey, Weird British Folklore Customs, but what I *didn’t* know was what a (literally) bloody contact sport it was! Yowch! Not sure I would even want to *watch* it, much less run it myself!

  175. 175.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    Being a boomer I was thinking ” the eighties had memorable music?” then I Googled it and they did.

    One of thing Stranger Things has done really well is to use period-appropriate music, and it bangs pretty hard.  Of course as someone born at almost the same time as the main characters, I would think that.

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @Torrey:

    Hawley seems to think Epicureanism is the same as hedonism.

    That word “think” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, there…

  178. 178.

    sab

    For some reason I fell out of following “popular” music and got into Celtic folk. Possibly because I fell in love with folk harps.  So I missed a whole decade of music. Heard it, remember it, but it didn’t register because I was into other stuff.

    I used to think that was the decade I grew up. Now I think it was the decade I got side-tracked.

    And I completely missed rap and hip-hop. Wrote it off as misogynistic and missed a whole generation plus of  music.

  179. 179.

    prostratedragon

    @MattF:  Ah yes. Took me till camembert to recall I’d seen it back in the day. Love the hat at the end.

  181. 181.

    rikyrah

    @Geminid:

    I’ve been chatting about the Hudson-Deeds race with some friends. I used to think Hudson was going to win; now I’m not so sure. It looks like Democratic leaders are closing ranks around Deeds. Word is being put out that Hudson is hard to work with, and that she should have “waited her turn.” Misogyny? You decide.

     

    I chafe anytime someone says that a politician needs to ‘ wait their turn’. Only usually applies to non-Whites and women.

    so…..No.

    uh uh.

    She is 34 with a PhD from MIT….goddamn!

  182. 182.

    Mike in Pasadena

    Epicurean liberalism? That’s a new one on me. That Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, that holy writ, said we were free to pursue happiness, but now we’re supposed to believe he was an epicurean liberal?

  183. 183.

    Michael Bersin

    @Soprano2:

    The thing is, most of the time, statutory language is understandable and specific. Missouri statutes give schools and and individual teachers the ability to deal with epidemic and epidemic-like circumstances, because in the past, you know, no one wanted their kids being exposed to diseases which could sicken or kill them. Cue MAGA.

    Of course, anyone who could read plain language knew that Eric Schmitt (r) was full of MAGA crap at the time.

  185. 185.

    Suzanne

    @brendancalling: I’m so sorry for the loss of your friend.

    My father-in-law also passed away yesterday, and I will wholeheartedly second your emphasis on maintenance of one’s health.

  187. 187.

    TriassicSands

    @brendancalling:

    I’m sorry for the loss of you friend.

    One of my best friends, who is 69 and has smoked his entire adult life (early diagnosis with COPD), refuses to go to the doctor. He’s an intelligent, but entirely irrational person when it comes to health. He has plenty of money and health insurance, but operates under the delusion that as long as he doesn’t go to the doctor and get bad news, then he must be OK. There are medications to slow the progress of COPD, but he’s never paid any attention to them.

    I have another friend, who is 86 and has COPD. He’s never shied away from doctors and, clearly, he’s led a long, productive life. But, now, as he nears death, his condition is miserable. He still works as a math tutor at a community college, but he’s on oxygen and needs mechanized help to get around. Yet, if he hadn’t gone to the doctor, he probably would have died years ago.

    Today, our health care system is a dysfunctional mess. Increasingly, it is harming people it could help, but depending on what health problems one has — the simpler, the better — it is still possible, if not at all guaranteed, to get meaningful care. When I say simpler, I don’t mean one’s condition cannot be serious, but as soon as more than one specialist is involved (unless you have access to the Mayo or Cleveland Clinic or some other entity where doctors communicate and work together) your care is likely to suffer.

    Men are much worse about seeing doctors than are women, despite the fact that medical care has historically been focused on men.

    No matter what age you are, but especially if you are elderly, go to the doctor for regular check-ups and, above all, be informed and be an aggressive advocate for yourself. Many doctors are terrible listeners, so, if you have a problem, don’t take “no” for an answer until you are satisfied.

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