The Indigo Girls are having a moment because their most famous song is featured at a key scene in the Barbie movie. Here are Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers performing their then-new hit on the Letterman show in 1989:
NYT columnist Lydia Polgreen talks about what it means to witness the renewed relevance of a song that was a staple of one’s “angsty adolescence” — and why the Indigo Girls remain on her playlist well into middle age (gift link):
They are, as the kids would say, cringe.
Cringe: the ultimate insult of our era. It implies a kind of pathetic attachment to hope, to sincerity, to possibility. Cringe is not exclusively female; the musical “Hamilton,” written by a man, Lin-Manuel Miranda, is definitely cringe. But in these hardened times, it implies a kind of naïveté that so often gets coded as feminine, a silly belief that human beings, through sincere effort, might actually improve themselves and the world. That things might, somehow, get better. Feminism? Definitely cringe. And if feminism is cringe, then lesbians are double cringe. And the Indigo Girls? We’re talking cringe squared…
We live in dangerous, frightening times. We’ve been through a pandemic and stared down a global recession. Rights that seemed secure — to control our bodies, to marry whom we love, to vote — are under attack. We’re once again reminded of the ever-present threat of nuclear war and confrontation with China. It’s likely the hottest summer in recorded history. You can respond to these circumstances with fatalistic cynicism. Or you can meet them with a sense of possibility, grounded in reality, loosely tethered to something like hope.
To me, this is what the Indigo Girls are all about. Sincerity coupled with wisdom, which is a recipe for something durable: solidarity. A sense that we are in this together. The Indigo Girls are great. Cringe but true. That’s because the kernel of who we are is cringe. That is what it means to be open to the world. To be open to the possibility of a future different from who you are now. When we are young, we feel that way because we don’t know any better. Eventually you get to a place where you know all the ways it can go wrong and feel open anyway.
We could all use something like hope these days, and it’s there if you look for it. I saw it last night in Ohio. I’m even seeing it in Florida!
Open thread!
lowtechcyclist
Good morning, y’all!
Baud
I love that song.
Jeffro
It was a great night for women, protecting reproductive rights, and democracy in general!
1) Far-right extremists keep losing at the ballot box (by even bigger margins than the usual Dem vs Rep contests)![]()
2) Dems have been over-performing in elections (even in ‘red’ states!) by an average of 7 points since the Dobbs decision came down from SCOTUS. That’s huge!
3) GOP dark-money high-dollar donors continue to drive these extreme measures, which is great: it’s more $$$ that they can’t use on trump’s legal defense fund er I mean ‘campaign’
4) Even when the Republicans try to change the rules (as was the case here in Ohio), large majorities of Americans respond and refuse to have their rights taken away.
Again, a great night all around! Let’s keep it up this November and then again in 2024!
4 Big Takeaways From Last Night’s Special Election in Ohio
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Good morning.
Jeffro
Republicans, even the blessed NYT is trying to tell you you’re fucking up royally by being anti-abortion extremists
p.a.
@Jeffro: Yes indeed. What we can learn from those fucks: they never quit. They’re still trying to fuck up generational programs like Social Security & Medicare.
Baud
@Jeffro:
What choice do they have? You dance with the ones that brung you.
prostratedragon
Focus on some superwomen:
Protecting the South Shore lakefront in Chicago
Jadie David, legendary movie stuntwoman
Baud
Regarding what’s cringe, I don’t care how you feel, I care what you do.
Josie
I do admit to a certain cynicism about the motives of the people we are up against, but I also am beginning to have hope that they are not as powerful as they would like to be. We just have to keep on keeping on.
Baud
@Josie:
I think there’s a difference between recognizing our enemies are liars based on experience and being cynical about them. To me, cynicism reflects an attitude one has when there is little evidence to support a point of view.
Jeffro
Subhead on that NYT article:
(insert screeching red police siren GIF here
EVEN IN AUGUST.
EVEN IN OHIO.
GOP, your stupid turnout-suppressing tricks and end runs aren’t working anymore…whatcha gonna do NOW?
Josie
@Baud:
According to your definition, I am not cynical, just realistic. Thanks.
Baud
@Josie:
You are welcome.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Y’all got the FA moment you’d been aiming at for decades. Now FO is headed your way, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of people.
ETA: This comment is obviously aimed at the antiabortion people, not Jeffro.
Victor Matheson
Yeah, “Closer to Fine” hit right when we were in college. I was the guy in charge of booking bands for my college, and I tried so hard to get them, but after this, no way I could afford them. If only I could have signed a contract just 3 months earlier… What a great band and outstanding song and album.
Jeffro
@lowtechcyclist: what I want to know is, do the send the fruit basket to Justice Alito’s house, or his office? Protocol and what not.
OzarkHillbilly
I have 5 granddaughters. I have to hope for a better tomorrow and work for it. What choice do I have?
Baud
My opinion isn’t popular, but I don’t believe the cynicism is 100% organic. I think the oligarchs and the fascists deliberately stoke it because they know it helps them.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: As if no “special interest money” was flooding in on the “yes” side. *rolleye
ETA – I saw this story on Yahoo this morning. I think we already knew about the existence of this document, but evidently Maggie got her hands on it.
Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn Biden’s Win
Then there’s news of the weird:
Car crashes into second floor of a house, and cops say driver did it on purpose
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
I’d say let’s hold off until abortion is once again legal in all 50 states. There are still too many places in this country where women can’t get decent medical care on account of Dobbs and the state laws passed in its wake. Once those laws are undone, I’ll send him as big a fruit basket as we can find.
Dorothy A. Winsor
This is a real, actual, authentic Trump quote:
Barbara
@Baud: Making others feel powerless is a powerful way to reinforce your own hold on power. There’s no doubt.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Makes sense. They’re always accusing us of supporting post-birth abortion.
Mousebumples
I agree! I have a 3 (almost 4 year old) daughter. I am done having kids (*unless/until they take away birth control access – though as a pharmacist, I can probably figure something out, lol), but my daughter should not grow up in a country where she’s a second class citizen.
I don’t want to move to Canada, etc. I want to stay and fight – but if we’re still in this second class citizen limbo in 10 ish years… My family may need to reassess.
sdhays
Is this true? I’ve definitely heard it in other contexts.
OzarkHillbilly
That graph is rather stunning..
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
Few things that get mass-media attention in politics are “organic”. Even if they start that way, the monsters will push it if they think it helps their goals.
e.g. “Wall”, “Tea Baggers”, etc., etc.
Someone here a while ago pointed to a smart article that said the press is most worried about offending their advertisers. That’s why they both-sides everything, that’s why they refuse to tell the actual truth about what’s happening, who’s behind it, and why they’re doing it. They don’t want to offend the ad buyers. But too many of the sensible ad buyers retired when the giant corporations (IBM, GE, GM, etc.) stopped having easy billions to play with and loved spreading their largess on PBS, etc. Now, the press has to scrape for every dollar, and if they say that the GQP is trying to create a fascist dictatorship then they’ll lose ads from crazy pillow guy and crazy ambulance chaser guy and crazy gun-nut guy and …
When I’m benevolent despot, PBS and NPR and VOA and … will get much more funding for their news operations (and operations in general). A democracy that does not have a functional press that informs the public is in danger…
Grr…,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@sdhays: In the modern slang sense, I think that’s a fair description of the word’s connotations, at least in the context described. But it’s an old word that has different meanings too.
artem1s
@Jeffro:
You mean like The Catholic Church Mikey? Where was all your concern when you were AG and they were flooding the state with hush money to cover up Bishop Pilla’s pedophile priests?
Kay
That’s a lovely essay, Betty C. Thanks.
This is what happens with this extreme gerrymandering – these people are dug in like ticks. Safe as houses. There’s no competition at all. They completely and utterly disregard the public because they are no longer accountable to them in any real way.
They defied the public on making their seats more competitive- fought us and won – and even that wasn’t enough. They came back with their attempt to block democratic referendums, got shot down again but it doesn’t matter – they’re completely disconnected from us.
artem1s
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
always projection. looks like TFG is going to flip and blame everything on Donnie Jr.
Glidwrith
Regarding the OPs definition of cringe: they need to check their teen-speak translator. The kids ADORE Hamilton and they are fighting mad to take on the asses that are destroying their world. Cringe is defined by them as being so socially awkward that even strangers cringe from the situation.
I could pity the fools that keep trying to destroy our rights, our bodies and our environment, but I’m right there with the kids and have zero, zip, nada fucks to give on the fate the fools have made for themselves.
Caveatimperator
@Glidwrith:
Seriously, the hate for Hamilton seems to almost entirely come from a very online faction of the further left, not your average musical fan.
(IMO, this hate also comes from a ridiculous misunderstanding of the play, but I won’t go into this unless you really want me to.)
Baud
@Caveatimperator:
People always think the online is a representative sample. It’s hard not to do. Even I have to check myself at times.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
I think the anti abortion movements absolute cavalier disregard for womens health and welfare has been noticed by women. They are much, much worse in power than even I thought they would be and I have been reading them since law school.
I knew they would tier women lower than the pregnancy when they drafted state codes- I didn’t know they would happily, blithely put tens of millions of us at risk and deny us medical care. They’re more stupid and dogmatic and misogynist than I thought, and that is saying something.
I’m interested in the anti abortion brain trust – the highly paid and educated pros like the Susan B Anthony people and the Notre Dame lawyers. How they managed to stupidly reveal how they seek to control, punish and dominate women when they had 50 years to plan policy. The state laws are garbage- they’re sloppy junk.
Suzanne
I took the kids to see “Barbie” last week, and Spawn the Youngest fell asleep. Spawn the Younger loved it but did not get all the musical references. Spawn the Elder had already seen it and told us all about it.
The scene with “Push” had me absolutely in tears laughing. There was even a Stephen Malkmus joke! Ahhhhh, as someone who lusted after those indie rock boys, and was always so disappointed to learn that they were shitty….. it hit hard! LOL!
Random note: we went to the same theater that the Bidens did to see “Oppenheimer”. We were there the day after.
Scout211
I posted last night that with this Ohio win and the latest opinion poll that found disapproval of the Dobbs decision has not faded after a year and a majority of voters are planning to take a candidate’s position on abortion into consideration when voting next year, I am feeling hopeful.
And Jack Smith and his team, plus the judges and prosecutors (with one exception) are making me feel hopeful.
I am a long-time Indigo Girls fan. Love them. I haven’t seen the Barbie movie so the Indigo Girls music in the movie is new information to me. Sweet!
An interview in Variety is a fun read.
Betty Cracker
@Glidwrith: No generation is a monolith, which is why it’s always inaccurate to make sweeping generalizations based on age cohorts. That said, Hamilton and its author definitely went through a well-documented, youth-driven backlash phase a few years back. At the time, I suspected it was because the kids were horrified that their parents liked it and thus felt compelled to trash it.
Jeffro
@lowtechcyclist: well, we can celebrate now AND keep fighting until it’s legal in all 50.
so maybe a bunch of bananas? That seems apropos
RevRick
If cringe is defined by a ‘naive belief that human beings can improve themselves and the world, then the Northern Whigs of the 1830s and 40s were the leading exponents of cringe in their day. Indeed, their watchword was “improvement.” Their understanding of masculinity was defined by self-control, where a luminary like Lincoln would describe it as reason mastering the emotions. And that era witnessed an explosion of voluntary organizations aimed at improving the conditions of society. Why, there was even one dedicated to providing crutches to those disabled by amputation or disease.
Of course, the most noteworthy cringe organizations of the era were abolitionism and the founding of the Temperance Society, which was begun as a decidedly feminist project to reduce wife beating by drunken husbands. And let’s not forget that great cringe moment known as the Seneca Falls Declaration.
Kay
The legal brain trust on the Right had 50 years to plan state law on abortion and put in a code that protects womens health and welfare and they had NOTHING. They jammed thru some boilerplate that looks like the vague and sloppy criminal laws from the early 1900s. That’s how little they cared for women. They did no work at all to prepare for this, put no thought into it, they didn’t even in any way align it with health care practioners. Because they tier women below pregnancy and the obtuseness comes about because they don’t realize that most people do NOT tier women below pregnancy. They’re standouts – fringe- on hating women.
Baud
@Kay:
Plus, they’re lazy grifters.
Caveatimperator
@Kay: Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
And considering the kind of language we’ve seen about abortion on the right, I think it’s reasonable to think that malice is the driver for a lot of anti-abortion sentiment.
The existing laws do a terrible job of protecting women with pregnancies that have gone wrong because that’s never been a priority for them. One or two badly written laws somewhere is a mistake. These laws are too common and too consistent to be just a mistake.
Baud
@RevRick:
As you know, the real reason the South seceded was because the North was too cringe.
Baud
@Jeffro:
What do you get a man has been given everything as an unreported gift?
Geminid
@Jeffro: Yesterday’s result was an inauspicious sign for Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s Senate bid. He announced three weeks ago, and is competing with businessman Bernie Moreno amd State Senator Matt Dolan for the nomination to face U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown next year.
Dolan came in 3rd in last year’s primary, while Moreno dropped out of the race after a meeting with Trump. Moreno is running as a self-funding “outsider;” he’s been endorsed by Senator Vance, and has also won the coveted Marco Rubio endorsement.
Moreno owns a lucrative auto dealership, while Dolan’s family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team. I’m hoping this will be another “crab bucket” race, with the winner coming out missing a leg or two.
Kay
Who writes a code regulating health care that touches on every single pregnancy and gets no input at all from health care professionals? The anti abortion Right, that’s who.
It’s fucking outrageous. There would be more concern for livestock regulations than there has been for womens health on the Right. They have taken womens health care and put it wholly in the realm of religion. There are cancer patients who get pregnant now and the religious authorities are denying them chemo. Chemo! A time sensitive treatment to save their lives. In the United States. In 2023.
That’s how much they hate us.
Jeffro
@Kay: they really didn’t think it through
or at least, the left hand (GOP-run state legislatures) didn’t know what the right hand (Leonard Leo) was doing, and plan accordingly
or something?
Here’s hoping the infighting and blame-games on the right go on for a decade or more!
Immanentize
I get what the author is going for in the essay, but must olds always wrap their own preferences and opinions in the clothes of opposition to the young? That is problem one — olds think they are young people whisperers. They most definitely are not.
I dont give a crap what “the kids today say” (which is always a signal some “get off my lawn” is about to follow). I know the “kids” are going to save this messed up country/planet/whatever that olds are still trying hard to fuck up. That is the cringiest cringe fact, not “Closer I am to Fine.”
Meanwhile, Maui is on fire — thanks, Olds!
zhena gogolia
@Glidwrith: I did have a student tell me Hamilton was “cringe” until we studied it in class. Then they changed their tune.
Jeffro
@Geminid: here’s hoping it’s missing crab legs, all the way down!
Ocotillo
@Jeffro: Heh, Strip Search Sammy scoffs at your fruit basket. Gratitude is shown at beginning price of a private jet ride to an exotic local to do some manly things like killing elk or something.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: I have taught Hamilton in a course that I gave in 2016, 2018, and 2021. It’s really interesting to me to see how the students’ attitudes to it have evolved, from excited fandom to somewhat “over it” to, hey, this is a really good old piece, isn’t it? They always end up really engaged by it, though, no matter where they start. It holds up to serious scrutiny, which is all I care about.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: 😂😂😂 (little ones because I don’t know how to make them big)
Kay
@Caveatimperator:
And they haven’t modified any of them! They could change the Texas law to protect those women who are being greviously harmed by the sloppy junk they had the clerics and lobbyists draft. They won’t. They prefer we suffer.
When I was in law school it was fashionable for Right wing lawyers to sneer at Roe. Poorly reasoned! Not up to their high, high standards. What an absolute crock of shit. They produce junk – all those fucking fancy federalist society lawyers with the 200k educations cannot manage to draft a coherent state law that integrates with health care.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Maxim
@Baud: Absolutely. Relatedly, I saw a post on FB the other day that said (paraphrasing), “Cynicism is tempting because it makes things very simple. Every situation has the same answer: there’s no point trying. But if that’s not true, then we have work to do. We have to contend with the possibility of hope.”
It was better phrased than that, but that was the gist.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: that’s awesome!
The Fro family got ‘Hamilton fever’ a looong time ago and while it has faded, it was quite the thing for us for years. Fro Jr can still rap Hercules Mulligan’s part from “The World Turned Upside Down” (and he’s old enough now that we let him rap the bad words ;)
Maxim
@rikyrah: Good morning 🌞
Kay
@Jeffro:
They didn’t think it through because their perspective, the grounding that informs the laws they write, is much, much more misogynist and radical than the country is. They are 30%. Of voters. So 15 or 20 %.
You cannot cavalierly disregard health care – best practices- for all women of child bearing age and claim you support women. Those two things are incompatible. If they cared they would have done the work. They didn’t.
BruceFromOhio
@Jeffro: This this this. The organizing and momentum is genuine, if still fledgling. Though the fascists have deep pockets of dark money, the folks who don’t watch Faux are getting the messages in spite of creatures like the FTFNYT best efforts to both-sides the repeated assaults on democracy. The next steps are to keep the lights shining on these dark spaces and get people of OH to the ballot box while we still have the right to vote.
Immanentize
@Kay: This is so true! Why are the righty lawyers so bad at law generally? Did they just get tired of governing instead of just trolling? Owning the libs? Did they find it more useful to off shore all the law writing to ALEC and such organizations? Where are their unified thoughts in codes? A system of law they prefer?
Legislatures were always kinda meh about actual law writing, but before 2000, they tried.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
UncleEbeneezer
@Caveatimperator: A lot of these people are white, leftists who pride themselves on being so much cooler than everyone else and want to strike a pose of “but you see, I listen to REAL hip hop, not just the appropriated stuff custom-made for the white gaze.” See: every music thread at LG&M, for just one example. Hamilton is brilliant but it is still seen as a mostly-white phenomenon. And I think that definitely plays into the way White Leftists, view it.
Maxim
@Immanentize: The right is deeply anti-intellectual. They disdain serious thought as beneath them and believe power is all that matters. Not conducive to good law writing, or any other kind.
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: Studying from a History angle or a Music angle? I think the music of Hamilton is absolutely brilliant and on par with other great musicals (Sound of Music, West Side Story etc.) And while I definitely burned myself out by over-listening to it, the songs are still incredible.
Kay
@Immanentize:
When I was writing for the front page here I really sat down and read the “heartbeat bill” out of Ohio. At the time it was unimagineable that this thing would become a law, but of course we’re long past that.
As I was reading it I was absolutely flooded with “but what about…” hypotheticals just thinking of womens lives and health care and how complicated pregnancy policy is “at scale” – when it affects milllions and millions. Not an expert. Just someone who has been pregnant, knows some actual women who are not self sacrificing fundamentlist religious extremists and knows the normal amount about it, has had a miscarriage and pregnancy complications, etc. I was “this is a MESS – it’s somehow both too broad and also too narrow! Why didn’t they define any of the terms?” and on and on.
No one on the Right did any of that thinking. Because they don’t care.
rikyrah
@Kay:
have you followed the suit in Texas about the abortion laws?
how the State contended that the women who were suing, who were now INFERTILE, should be considered because of ‘ standing’.
the unmitigated gall of these muthaphuckas to say that these women don’t have standing because they are infertile..DUE TO THE ANTI-ABORTION LAWS IN PLACE.
Jackie
@Jeffro: From the WaPo article you linked to:
“The effort was also extensively financed by one man, conservative Illinois GOP donor Richard Uihlein, who provided $4 million of the nearly $5 million raised by Protect Our Constitution, the main group supporting the measure, and playing a large role in getting it on the ballot.”
I sincerely hope he deemed it millions worth throwing away!
I wonder if he’ll donate the same amount trying to defeat Ohio’s abortion initiative this Nov.
Nelle
@Kay: Thank you for putting words to my inarticulate rage. I think men as a general group don’t get the depth of the rage that women, particularly older women are feeling now. I was walking past a neighbor who was cleaning a tarp on her driveway. I know that she is somewhat conservative in a lot of ways, but she has had it with men. After telling me why she was cleaning the tarp with such energy, she muttered, “Too many in this country don’t remember Lorena Bobbitt.” It certainly startled me to hear that from her.
Not to co-opt the very righteous reaction of many Black people to the Montgomery brawl, but even this old woman, raised as a Mennonite pacifist, got some pleasure at seeing the entitled meet a “find out” phase.
RevRick
@Baud: The cringiest!
rikyrah
Can one of the lawyers here explain to me about this:
Jack Smith possibly going after one of Dolt45’s PAC?
What charges could he bring up against a PAC?
Why would the PAC be under the umbrella of things that Smith could investigate?
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro: It’s great. I think you’ll find if you revisit it that it holds up.
UncleEbeneezer
The other thing that makes the use of Closer I Am To Fine in the Barbie movie so great, is that it very much was one of those songs that no cis/het dudes would have ever admitted to liking back when it was out. It would have meant you were somehow less of a man for doing so. My sister LOVED IT, so I had to hate it. A completely ridiculous, and immature way to see it, but that was very much the way I and most of my guy friends felt at the time. We were in our own box of acceptable Masculinity. Which is what makes it the perfect song choice and one of the funniest moments of the film. Gerwig really knocked it out of the park, in so many ways :)
Jeffro
Josh Marshall over at TPM: A Revolution In Politics
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: From a literary angle. (We discuss the music, but that’s not my area of expertise.) We look at it alongside Dostoevsky. I kid you not.
Suzanne
@Kay:
I think about gender expectations with respect to the concept of sacrifice a lot. In many these little boroughs and towns around here, there will be these printed banners hanging from streetlights with the names and portraits of local boys who died in various wars. And my little neighborhood has a whole war memorial with names inscribed, and many of the others have something similar. Some of these are really old, like dating back to WWI. Dudes’ sacrifice is celebrated and memorialized and solemnly remembered. It’s special, it’s heroic. It’s going above and beyond expectation.
But women are just expected — the baseline expectation — is to die in pregnancy or childbirth. Or to jump in front of a shooter to protect their students. There’s no banners, no memorials, no celebration, no recognition that bearing and raising and educating and forming children is a monumental endeavor on behalf of society. Our lives are literally less important, not even worth remembering.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: You’re right — it’s literally true that far-right lawmakers are more concerned about livestock than women.
I’ve seen debates about proposed regulatory changes that would affect big ag. Chemists, veterinarians, etc., were asked to weigh in on the downstream effect on cattle, horses, chickens, pigs, etc., prior to a vote.
For women’s reproductive healthcare, the statehouse allocated several million to religious fanatics who run fake “crisis pregnancy clinics” to hand out diaper coupons — and bother about the implications of the 20% or so of pregnancies that end in miscarriage not at all.
Craig
@UncleEbeneezer: a lot of this. Especially about LG&M music threads. The people there definitely skew old and out of touch, yet hanging on to a snobbish hip attitude. I mean Drive by Truckers were an alright band, but talking about them today is like going to see The Rolling Stones in 1990 and thinking you are hip.
Jeffro
@Craig: LOL – hey now, easy on the “think we’re hip” crowd! ;)
DBTs are now playing some shows in sit-down theaters as opposed to general admission places, so you are more on target than you might know!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s because men haven’t figured out how to monetize women the way they have for livestock.
Kay
@rikyrah:
If women are becoming involuntarily unable to have children as a result of your law you wrote a bad law and I don’t care what the law was supposedly about. It is not okay to hurt women – to damage them and risk their health and lives and deny them modern health care – in pursuit of religious dogma. They may not put us second to a religious concept of pregnancy.
They think they can silo “abortion” from pregnancy – a clean, wholly invented line that wasn’t informed by actual womens lives and modern “best practices” health care and it’s much, much harder than that.
We told them so. We were ignored. “Ignored”. Told we were hysterical.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Wow. So true.
tobie
All the D victories in special elections this year tell me that there’s something way off about polls of the Presidential race. My completely uneducated guess is that Republicans are mad and champing at the bit to register their opinions in any and every survey. Most other folks ignore the calls, because they don’t really want to think about politics (because angry Republicans have made it so ugly). What they do do is vote in special elections.
BruceFromOhio
@Kay:
Go ask ALEC, I think it’ll know.
rikyrah
so not the Democratic Party’s problem
Candidly Tiff (@tify330) posted at 9:29 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Kari Lake prepares to launch Arizona Senate campaign in October
Good let the Republicans destroy themselves and go broke in a primary. https://t.co/CnhVSO2obL
(https://twitter.com/tify330/status/1689101668816752640?t=3A5asduZJvpPOC6FNhuCVA&s=03)
Jeffro
On a side note, as to be expected: not. one. story. about Ohio on Fox News dot com. Not a single one.
rikyrah
Qondi (@QondiNtini) posted at 11:49 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
We’ve got the GOP on the ropes
Democrats are winning BIG in special elections
Bidenomics is booming
VP Harris crushed that goofy goon DeSantis
The orange fella is up to his wattle in civil/criminal legal cases
GOP state parties are broke
Kevin is flailing
Keep pushing! https://t.co/bAel9Pqk6N
(https://twitter.com/QondiNtini/status/1689136809911939072?t=W1zjDAPJ-XiF9eCAy1OXSA&s=03)
narya
@Immanentize:
I know! I know! Because they are coddled, intellectually and often in other ways as well. There’s always some RWNJ society or group that will throw money at them, and they are so convinced of their rightness that they do not make any effort to challenge first principles (or second or third principles). There’s so much conservative money available to support them and, dare I say it, groom them, that they are insulated from, e.g., actual hard work.
rikyrah
Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) posted at 8:12 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Since Dobbs in June of 2022, Dems keep overperforming expectations again and again, and Rs keep underperforming.
One side is fired up, governing well, working hard, winning, and the other side keeps losing and will have Trump as their nominee. Big yikes.
(https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1689082198211649536?t=NMclSZnB3EZlWLX6KRYiGA&s=03)
Betty
I have never been a fan of Matt Yglesias, but he crossed a line after the Ohio vote when he described the “No” advocates as neurotic. What a clueless jerk.
BruceFromOhio
@UncleEbeneezer:
I’ve picked up some fine titles from those. Sure its holier-than-thou posturing in places, still some nuggets among the ashes.
rikyrah
Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) posted at 0:06 AM on Wed, Aug 09, 2023:
Ohio reveals the biggest missed political story:
While the media loves to cover Republicans crying about how much they are fed up, it is Democrats who are showing how fed up they are by taking action and voting
(https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1689140957852082176?t=DUn-tOZhNi9otr9akHYM0A&s=03)
Baud
@Betty:
That’s awful. Especially for a so-called professional. There are no standards anymore.
OzarkHillbilly
I very much liked it and sang it at the top of my voice whenever it came up on the radio. It probably had something to do with my eldest sister and diehard Indigo Girls fan introducing me to them. Peggy always had excellent taste in music, if she liked it, it had to be good.
Kay
I’m really bitter about white male middle aged pundits minimizing this issue and some of that has bled over to my view of non pyscho normal men but I’m trying to get a handle on it. I recognize it’s unfair and also probably politically stupid, because we need allies. Sorry in advance! Just..duck if you see me coming :)
This is the thing – women in the United States in 2023, right now, are being denied life and health saving medical care because of the religious edicts 15% of the country follow and are now codified in 20-some states. A lot of women. Maybe not “millions” at any one time, but A million, easy.
This is important.
laura
@rikyrah: Off the top of my head, I’d say he may be looking at fraud similar to the Build the Wall case (the one in which Steve Bannon was pardoned, but the Veteran who bought himself a boat was left to the tender mercies of the prison system). Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel is all over the various cases and is well worth following on twitter and Emptywheel.net
Found it: https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/04/22/bannons-one-time-co-conspirators-admit-they-cheated-trump-supporters-in-the-conspiracy-trump-pardoned-bannon-for/
tobie
@Betty: I feel like Yglesias’ stock and trade is being contrarian and over time that is either boring or grating or both. What a stupid response on his part to people saying ‘no’ to the assault on their power to govern their own bodies.
rikyrah
I believe that the Democrats need to make that racist phuck from Alabama one of the poster children for their ads in 2024. He’s so intent on controlling the reproductive rights of military women, that he’s willing to hurt the military overall. Make him part of that anti-abortion story that they’re telling about the GOP.
The Hill (@thehill) posted at 11:06 AM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
“I think everybody’s been hoping that Sen. Tuberville would back down and I think we have to come to the conclusion that that is not happening and that he is prepared to burn the military down,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said.
https://t.co/5oBsfmUFAP
(https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1688944679310471168?t=rRoIQiEhr6JkjJAft8bHDw&s=03)
Immanentize
@UncleEbeneezer: Im a Cis Het dude and I loved the Indigo Girls. And Holly Near before them. But I went to a liberal State Uni. And the Montessori Law School. I had lots of friends in the 70’s who were gay. You may be a bit older than me? But i think it probably is more a Q of where than when?
Meanwhile, I love what Holly Near said about her sexual identity and why she didn’t use “bisexual” to describe herself:
H.E.Wolf
@Jackie:”
August 9, 2023 at 9:55 am@Jeffro: From the WaPo article you linked to:’The effort was also extensively financed by one man, conservative Illinois GOP donor Richard Uihlein, who provided $4 million of the nearly $5 million raised by Protect Our Constitution, the main group supporting the measure, and playing a large role in getting it on the ballot.’I sincerely hope he deemed it millions worth throwing away!”
[ETA: I did the math for my own edification, because 4 million sure sounds like a lot to me]
Richard Uihlein’s net worth is 3.8 billion. 1 billion = 1,000 million. So a 4 million contribution, for him, is like fishing 1 penny out of the change jar on the bureau….
rikyrah
I can’t
BWA HA HA AH AH AH HA AH AHAH A HA HA HA
Sgt Joker (@TheSGTJoker) posted at 5:20 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Dear Ethel,
The Battle of Montgomery is lost. After our surprise attack against the guard, the enemy brought reinforcements. Cletus lost his tooth, Jebediah took a chair to the head, and Agnes was tossed in the river. Send bail money.
Love always,
Chadburne
#2dCivilWarLetters https://t.co/ejvOLTIyWs
(https://twitter.com/TheSGTJoker/status/1689039027972771840?t=hdURFhVKpyviOOm7AN88AQ&s=03)
BruceJ
@p.a.: That has been their multi-generational mission since the Great Class Traitor FDR signed Social Security into law.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I wonder how much he is getting from Putin to hamstring our military.
rikyrah
JB Pritzker (@JBPritzker) posted at 9:27 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Tonight, in a massive win for democracy, voters in Ohio rejected a right-wing measure to change the rules of the game.
Extremist Republicans will stop at nothing to dismantle reproductive rights. We must fight like hell to make sure they lose this November.
(https://twitter.com/JBPritzker/status/1689101170298540032?t=0MHD75F_sEPOqlpkvaK7bg&s=03)
Tony Jay
“In the aftermath of this travesty the battle lines have been drawn. If Voter-Americans are so bound and determined to frustrate the democratic demands of Real-Americans through their manipulation of ballot-box math, then I’m sorry, I’m really, truly sorry, but in the face of this naked oppression it is our solemn duty, our duty as the representatives of the Real-American majority, to once and for all unshackle ourselves from the chains of tradition and reach out our strong right hand to use every legal means and every constitutionally-mandated weapon at our disposal to protect the rights of trueborn and unborn American from this Woke/Vote Agenda that would steal our country and our freedoms right from under us! We didn’t want this war. We are not the aggressor. But when the smoke clears and morning returns to this great land, it will be in the light of a new dawn, one where Real-Americans will never again be made to suffer the indignity of watching their electoral choices be dismissed by the Liberal Media and their Vote Machines. This is our Republic, our Real Republic, and it’s past time we showed the Democrat Mob what that means!”
Extract from Speeches My MIrror Went Mad For – A Manifesto for Tomorrow, Today, by Ivor E. Skeyntown, President-Emeritus of the Free State of Greater Jefferson and future Republican nominee for the post of Inspector-General of Electoral Integrity
BruceFromOhio
@UncleEbeneezer: This cis/het dude fucking LOVES that song, that album, all the albums after, the band, and getting to shake hands with Amy Ray out by the bus after a show in Cleveland in 1991. Sung it loud then, since, and still. On the rare opportunity I get the long solo car ride, IG is one band on the short list of bands that gets the full shuffle treatment of all their music.
rikyrah
I consider this a water is wet story
PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) posted at 3:02 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
BREAKING: new study says 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down https://t.co/4G32b9bZB5
(https://twitter.com/politvidchannel/status/1689004147918639108?t=FiR8HKtZ_gBumPnlT44OAw&s=03)
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Doooood, Arizona GOP is absolutely shitting the bed. And Trump is absolutely the root cause. As I keep reminding everyone, Arizona Republicans and Independents have a significant registration advantage over Dems. And, even in 2022, non-MAGA Republicans like Kimberly Yee won statewide. If they get back to Normal/Neutral Evil Republicans, I absolutely believe that they will be a strong opponent.
But still being in the grip of Trump still means that they are gonna go with MAGA assholes and thus they will lose. Again. Please proceed, assholes.
Makes me feel more optimistic for Ruben Gallego.
rikyrah
David Frum (@davidfrum) tweeted at 7:42 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
The economy is strong.
The likely GOP nominee will be under criminal indictment in at least four jurisdictions.
The election’s most urgent social issue -national abortion prohibition, almost no exceptions – cuts at least 70-30 in favor of Democrats. https://t.co/94wrSCsEVB
(https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1689074701266554882?s=02)
rikyrah
YEP
Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) tweeted at 7:50 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Can’t overstate it: Roe v Wade was an electoral gift to Republicans while it was alive. It turned an issue that’s a huge loser for the party into a winner—they could mobilize their anti-abortion base without triggering a backlash by the abortion rights majority.
Now that’s over.
(https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1689076731888447488?s=02)
Rusty
For whatever reason, the New Haven CT radio stations were playing them before they were nationally known. I saw them play a free concert on the New Haven Green, then shortly later their star really rose. Just one more fun thing to look forward to when I hopefully get to see Barbie in the next week or so (already saw Oppenheimer, so halfway there!)
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: Off topic, but just saw this:
Puddin’ Boots goes after ANOTHER ELECTED DEMOCRAT:
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday suspended Monique Worrell, the state attorney for Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, accusing her of under-prosecuting criminals in her jurisdiction,” CNBC reports.”
”New York Times: “It is the second time in a year that Mr. DeSantis, a Republican running for president, has taken the drastic and exceedingly rare step of removing an elected state attorney. Both have been Democrats.”
RevRick
@BruceFromOhio: Yeah, about health care providers, it was the AMA at the forefront of enacting most of the anti-abortion laws in the late nineteenth century. They even excoriated the churches for their lax enthusiasm, most Protestant denominations being relatively indifferent to the status of the fetus before quickening.
My, how times have changed.
rikyrah
Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) tweeted at 8:08 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
That the elite political media does not yet seem to understand the megatonnage of the Dobbs decision out in the country is a very strange thing.
(https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/1689081123123482624?s=02)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@UncleEbeneezer: I would have and did admit to kind of liking it back when it came out and I was a cis hetero guy. I think I even owned the CD. I saw them open for REM on the Green tour but had never heard of them before that.
It’s weird that these unlikely folk hits from the late 1980s are suddenly having new life. “Closer to Fine” and Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” are both suddenly relevant again.
Although they way they talk about Luke Combs’s version of Fast Car it’s like he rescued some obscure folk song from back in the day…but Chapman’s version made #6 on the HOT 100! Not the college charts, or the folk charts (if there even is/was that) or R&B charts or Country charts but THE charts, the Hot 100.
It was definitely not obscure when it came out, or I should say improbably rose from obscurity to the #6 song in the nation. Nothing like it had charted since folk rock fell out of favor round about, what, 1975? Whenever guys like Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Croce, James Taylor etc. were making the charts. Closer to Fine never really hit that big but it was still everywhere on college campuses, at least when Grateful Dead bootlegs weren’t bogarting the stereo. So were 10,000 Maniacs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see or hear one of their songs come back around since that seems to be the moment we’re in.
rikyrah
THE PHUCK!
philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) posted at 9:11 PM on Mon, Aug 07, 2023:
The 17-year-old accused of fatally stabbing O’Shae Sibley while he was vogueing at a gas station claimed to be Muslim – but that’s not the truth, according to his family
Dmitriy Popov, is a “Christian boy,” born in the U.S. and his parents are Russian
https://t.co/bKgob4p881
(https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1688734633100234754?t=3qM6P4N7KqrJYtfY_NRLRA&s=03)
rikyrah
Lori Granito![]()
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(@lorigspeaks) posted at 3:45 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
This TikTok interview with the riverboat captain is enlightening. He says they knew who the people were who started it because they pull stupid sh1t every year. He called them over the PA system 5 or 6 times to move their boat and they just ignored & flipped him off.
(https://twitter.com/lorigspeaks/status/1689015119693467648?t=BTkt4FJJiJ9LsUN99AIdTQ&s=03)
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA AH AH AH HA HA HA AHA HA
The Oregonian (@Oregonian) posted at 4:33 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Republican senators who boycotted work can’t run for reelection, secretary of state rules https://t.co/pMvESO4rYb
(https://twitter.com/Oregonian/status/1689026961379561473?t=-F_H6ZTOhgedZATgphgwAg&s=03)
Craig
@Jeffro: I’m no better. Hell, I was talking to my buddy’s kid last week about hip-hop and realized what I was excitedly talking about was about 15 years old. I love Howard’s jazz posts over there.
smith
I think one reason the anti-abortion laws are so sloppily written is that the men writing them think women’s biology is icky, and they really, really don’t want to know anything about it. The ick would get all over them if they did.
rikyrah
Judge came back with..
See you on Friday at 10 am
BWA HA AH AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA HAH A
Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) posted at 1:38 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Jack Smith & Trump defense submitted their proposed dates for hearing on proposed “protective order”
Judge ordered a date be agreed upon between August 9-11
Special counsel says his team is available Aug. 9, Aug. 10 *and* Aug. 11
Trump defense recommends ….. August 14 or 15 https://t.co/K84xVltPM7
(https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1688983033716621314?s=03)
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: A political scientist said this in the Indian context but it is true about this country too. She said that religious bigotry is usually coupled with misogyny and casteism (in our context that would be racism)
Immanentize
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Is it to soon for an Edie Brickell revival?
What I Am
Jackie
@H.E.Wolf: True, but Issue 1 was in a sense his own personal “issue.”
It still has to sting his pride! Billionaires spend expecting to WIN.
Obvious Russian Troll
Apropos of nothing, my friend’s six- and nine-year-old daughters love this Hamilton parody despite never having seen Hamilton.
West of the Rockies
Hamilton is cringe? I must be missing tons of subtext. My gut reaction is F.U. cringers.
rikyrah
More background:
philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) posted at 1:16 PM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023:
Montgomery, Alabama authorities address the brawl:
– The captain of the riverboat remained away from the dock for 40-45 minutes because the private boat was blocking
– The owners of the boat confronted the co-captain of the riverboat, were obscene and aggressive. “He was doing… https://t.co/AE9X0SaYUs
(https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1688977395615694854?t=w4mkORhGrdsNf-grI5SdFQ&s=03)
Suzanne
@smith:
Yes. Lots of men think women’s bodies are deeply gross.
The internet is full of stories of dudes who don’t know how periods work, don’t want to be around women when they’re on their periods or are really pregnant, who are shocked to learn what women really look like once they move in with a girlfriend for the first time, etc.
rikyrah
The MSM have spent over a year fluffing up Ronnie D.
They were ready to try and gaslight us in a general election with how different he was from Dolt45. They are PISSED that we are making fun of their investment, and that all their professional malpractice has had no effect on the CULT. ….
BWA HA AH AH AH HA HA HA HA AH HA
Hope Restored In DFW (@Kennymack1971) posted at 11:11 AM on Tue, Aug 08, 2023: The media is clinging to DeSantis and desperately trying to prop him up because even though they won’t report it’s increasingly evident that Trump’s going down in flames and none of the other sad sacks running for the GOP nomination scratch that MAGA itch. But it’s over. (https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/1688945922955231233?t=zPXMf0b81VtHTfodqzX0xQ&s=03)
Elizabelle
@Baud:
Bingo.
Good morning, jackals.
laura
@rikyrah: It’s just me and my .02 cents worth, but I believe that the racist shite-bag senator is merely using abortion related travel as a cover and what he is really doing is hollowing out the Military Leadership so that when trump is re-elected he can create his own with hand selected synchophants. There’s a whole plan to dismantle the administrative state and civil service, this being a part. Please, somebody, prove me wrong.
Immanentize
Serious Question:
Doesn’t Not Max live on Maui?
UncleEbeneezer
@Craig: Ha! So glad I’m not the only one who noticed. I tried listening to DBT once…once. They are fine but nothing that special to my ears. You sure wouldn’t know it by the consensus at LG&M which vastly overstates their importance (along with Sleater Kinney).
Another example is the way everyone there pretends like Led Zeppelin isn’t one of the biggest, most successful bands in rock history.
PaulWartenberg
I still remember how the Indigo Girls were first touring, came to Gainesville in 1989 if I recall, they couldn’t get booked in the auditoriums for a proper concert so they held one at the outdoor forum around the lake at Reitz Union. They packed the entire outside of Reitz. It was incredible. Proved how popular they were with just that debut album.
Jackie
SHIT!
“Sen. Dianne Feinstein was at the hospital, after tripping and falling Tuesday in her home city of San Francisco, TMZ reports.”
She’s not going to make it to Jan ‘25.
Bupalos
@Kay: oh god I would donate to and collect signatures for a republican effort to put up a repeal amendment in 2024. My biggest regret about our amendment (that is a coalition-splitter for that party) is that we’re putting it up in an off year. Politically speaking, it’s almost malpractice.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Yes. He was talking about it in the late night thread. Awful situation.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rikyrah: Lots of good new information there. The first guy being beaten up was the riverboat’s first mate, who he dropped off on the dock for the express purpose of moving the pontoon boat out of the way. The people from the pontoon boat were nowhere to be seen at that point, they’d walked away from their boat and left it blocking the dock.
Also, the move in question was a matter of 4 feet. The captain was just asking them to pull forward 4 feet.
Kay
@Betty:
The resistance to recognizing even the politics of this among white male middle aged pundits has been really revealing.
Yglesias is probably resisting more than most because the anti abortion campaigns are always coupled with anti woke and anti trans campaigns and Yglesias is one of the pundits who fell for the panic over wokeness. Their cause – anti woke hysteria- is tanking politically. Christopher Rufo and Andrew Sullivan may have inadvertently saved us from DeSantis.
They ran ads in Ohio on an anti woke, anti trans theme – they mostly didn’t mention abortion because they know they are fringe there – and they still lost. All of the anti woke pundits told us the public objected to wokeness and it was killing Democrats. Nope. It was an obsession of THEIRS, not the public.
Immanentize
@Baud: TY Going to look…
RaflW
@artem1s: Saw that the Catholic Church blew $500,000 for Yes on 1 in Ohio. Because Christ was definitely pro-supermajority voting. :/
NotMax
Wild stuff going on here on the Valley isle. West side of the island for all intents and purposes is closed.
Power at the cottage blinked out for only two seconds on Tuesday, other areas more extended. Internet at home (and thus VoIP landline) went kablooey for 12 hours, Fingers and toes crossed there won’t be a repeat performance.
Incredible winds supposed to taper off over Wednesday.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: thank you for pointing us to all the Montgomery Boat Battle memes. They sustained me yesterday.
We also had a special election in our county – to recall the one GOP County Commissioner who had any integrity. Thanks to a smear campaign against him led by the right-wing rag that poses as a newspaper hereabouts. Accusing him of being a pedophile, all the dreary garbage they resort to when the truth is not enough to get their way. Turnout was high, which led me to hope, but he has apparently lost by a squeaker.
And my heart is heavy over this because this isn’t the first time this hateful right-wing faction have forced a recall against any Commissioner they don’t like. I’m afraid this result will just embolden them to continue with these tactics.
So yeah…video of righteous rage AA smackdowns against arrogant white-wing bullies and pricks is helping me get closer to something like hope. Thanks again.
@Tony Jay: And I’m afraid that – delicious as your commentary always is – this one hits me literally where I live. It describes exactly where we are at right now with the right-wingers in my county. It’s enough to make me really feel like packing up and moving.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@UncleEbeneezer: I used to be like that with Alternative Rock back in the 1980s and early 1990s. I listened to the REAL alternative, not the stuff with commercial appeal. A lot of it in retrospect was REAL alright…real not good. There’s a reason a lot of those bands never rose above obscurity. The really good ones, The Smiths (yeah I know Morrisy is a dope these days but he’s always kind of been a dope) REM, New Order, a few others I could name if I gave it a little thought, people still know their stuff.
IDK if the same applies to the REAL hip hop. I’m not a huge hip hop fan so what qualifies as REAL I don’t know. I tried Kendrick Lamar out when he won the Pulitzer but…it just didn’t click for me. Maybe I should give it more of a try. But I doubt he’s even on the REAL hip hop list.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Immanentize: Ah yes another one from that era! Sure, why not?
UncleEbeneezer
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Did your fellow Cis/Het dude friends ever tease you for it? Maybe my crowd was even more misogynist than most but I’m guessing we were fairly typical for the 80’s-90’s. To be clear, now we are all like “it’s a good tune” and boys can like whatever they like, but at the time we were very caught up in the importance of gender norms and not being “girly” in any way. I’m happy to see much less of that attitude with my boy students nowadays. Sure they are sometimes still way too focussed on Blue Vs. Pink and other gender norms, but I see way more boys breaking out of them or just not thinking they are important.
Fast Car was on the radio CONSTANTLY!! It’s one of the reasons I never loved it. Great song but radio stations absolutely beat it to death.
Kay
They’re already rolling out the anti woke, anti trans campaign against the reproductive rights amendment in Ohio. They JUST fucking lost with that and they are rolling it out again. This panic over wokeness among the political class continues although the public rejects it as important over and over and over.
I guess that’s what happens when you delude yourself into thinking Richard Hanania is a mainstream normie and not an mysogynist, racist freak. Bari Weiss and Harlan Crow are really not your average midwestern voter. You fucking morons.
Maxim
@rikyrah: I just saw a post on FB from a Black jeweler who’s making folding chair earrings. ❤️
Immanentize
@NotMax: I was just wondering aloud about you. Glad you are OK. So sad about Lahaina.
FelonyGovt
@Suzanne: I saw Barbie last night with my daughter. We both loved it, and the America Ferrera speech at the end about women and mothers had me in tears.
Immanentize
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I am certain I could come up with more than a dozen now forgotten hits…. I’ve got the vinyl! But I need to pace myself.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Yup. Went outside around sunset Tuesday. Turning 360 degrees in the yard could see fires lighting up the sky in the distance (no immediate threat at this spot), no matter which way I was facing. Very Mordor looking.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Just seen a news clip of the fires there. I’m glad that you are okay. Does the wind bring any smoke or ash near you?
eversor
@Suzanne:
As a hetro male who lives with a woman that’s all deeply odd to me.
Then I remember Rod Dreher claimed that heterosexuality was something that had to be achieved. Like a video game achievement I guess. Also how he was deathly afraid of sex. Which was also very odd to me. I pretty much knew what I wanted and had crushes before I hit puberty there was no confusion about this at all. My only fear of sex was that I wouldn’t have it!
Then again, I have never tanned my balls.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: Oh, Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie – you’re *really* surprised that the “elite political media” is so out-of-touch and in the bag for the right wing that they can’t accurately assess the political climate? Please. Either you have way more faith in their good faith than I do – in which case you’re hopelessly naive – or you’re playing this for effect. Because some might say that you are part of that “elite political media” machine yourself.
Barbara
@Betty: Where did he do that?
Immanentize
@Kay: It is like you often say — they are now so far from normal discourse that everything they say needs some weird righty only decoder ring. Woke is broke, my dudes. They are just going to have to reset and return to straight up racism and misogyny. N-word, C-word; let it all hand out….
Bupalos
@rikyrah: Thank you Mr. Pritzger, I wish more of the media and dem messaging followed this form:
VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY (and for all human rights secured and defendedthrough that democracy, including reproductive rights)
This wasn’t a vote on reproductive rights. It was a vote on the ballance of power between citizens and legislators.
UncleEbeneezer
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m like you with hip-hop. I really just dabble. But that’s true for pretty much every genre, for me. Even in my fave genres (like instrumental jazz), I only usually love a handful of albums of a dozen or so artists.
Did you try To Pimp A Butterfly? That’s the Kendrick Lamar album I really love because it has Kamasi Washington’s band giving it a jazzy/funk feel. Jay Z’s 4:44 album is pretty awesome. Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B are both great. And while he’s turned out to be a colossal MAGA asshole, anti-semite etc., Kanye’s first three albums are still musical masterpieces, imo.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Only very intermittently at this location.
zhena gogolia
@Obvious Russian Troll: that’s great!
Tony Jay
@Miss Bianca:
Sorry. I was aiming for mockery via verisimilitude, but when the authoritarian omniphobes being mocked are literally on your doorstep…
They are going to lose though. They are losing. This is just what them losing actually looks like.
MisterDancer
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Kendrick Lamar is “Real” Hip-Hop. If you came up in Hip-Hop back in the day, it’s a LOT more diverse and complex and intriguing, these days.
Also: Morrissey isn’t just a “dope”. He is a whole-assed bigot. And I say this as someone who, in college and for years after, praised him and The Smiths as a fave band, bought albums when I had no money for it, etc.
Fuck Morrissey.
UncleEbeneezer
Congrats to Ohio!!! Really happy to see it. Nothing to add, but let’s keep it coming! #AbortionIsHealthcare.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@UncleEbeneezer: I never really got teased for it but I’m not sure I ever really listened to the album around other dudes much…it wasn’t the kind of thing you put on for like parties in the dorms or off campus for that matter. If I did it was probably the dudes I went to the REM concert with and since Indigo Girls were good enough for REM they were good enough for those guys
What really bugged me was the Deadhead revival. I was like why are you listening to this band from OUR PARENTS GENERATION rather than music made by bands of your own generation? I like American Beauty and Working Man’s Dead – both worthy albums – but obsessing over bootlegs – which show had the best version of what song – always mystified me. And you’re talking to a guy who has developed a taste for mid-century jazz, so I’m not averse to music based on improvisation.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
STAY SAFE! No cigar disposal while still lit.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: I hope you can stay safe!
Immanentize
OK, my allotted Ballon Juice vacation time is over. Later, friends.
gwangung
Fuck cringe. I’m all into hopepunk.
eversor
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
My concert years started in the 90s and there were some great ones in the DC area back then. Solid fun. Though I preferred raves and EDM. At one point I got suckered into going to Woodstock 1999 and that was an absolute disaster. A couple of my friends are still famous DJs on the Trance, House, and D&B circuits and if they are in town I’ll see them. But I’m done with concerts after the shit show (literal shit show) of 1999.
Suzanne
@FelonyGovt: I was talking to Mr. Suzanne about that scene after we saw it, and I was telling him how, for girls, even the toys you played with as a little kid are fraught. And that sucks. One of the Barbies in that movie was “Day-to-Night Barbie”, and her gimmick is that she has a work dress and a little play office, but you can take off her jacket and somehow her outfit transforms to being a going-out shimmery outfit, and the office transforms into a nightclub. I had that one back when I was a little kid in the 80s, and I loved it. And I remember my mom snarked about how, if Barbie was real, she wouldn’t going to a nightclub after work, she’d be going to pick up the kids and go to the grocery store. Blah blah blah. And some of my friends weren’t allowed to have Barbie because of the concern about body image, and some weren’t because she was apparently too sexualized, and some weren’t because moms were supposed to be giving their daughters dolls that were of the same race, hair color, etc, etc etc etc. Like, our toys were supposed to Prepare Us For Our Roles. What an unbelievable amount of responsibility for young (REALLY YOUNG) girls. Like, we can’t even enjoy fantasy life. Nothing gets to be uncomplicated.
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterDancer: Rod on The Black Guy Who Tips podcast talks all the time (as a life-long hip hop/rap fan) how great it is nowadays with so many kick-ass women leading the rap game and doing it in such a supportive way without trying to constantly tear each other down. And says it’s almost enough to make up for auto-tune and mumble rap, lol
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer:
Eh, I was introduced to the Indigo Girls while I was in the army. A captain who had gone to college at Georgia Tech and then been stationed in Georgia had a tape in his car and he played it a lot.
Barbara
@UncleEbeneezer: This reminds me that one of my favorite authors writing on both popular and classical music is Alec Ross, who reviewed a biographical account of Led Zeppelin that gave me a lot more insight into their particular “fusion” of modern, copyright protected rock music with the much more organic blues “tradition.” It’s one reason why they kept getting into trouble for not crediting musicians they obviously admired. I also found out that Led Zeppelin never achieved the same level of popularity in GB that they did in their non-native U.S.
Unrelated, I have been frustrated for a while now about how music “curation” seems to have vanished in a sea of algorithms that aren’t very creative. I signed up for some newsletters that promise to give me a list of new songs to sample every week, by artists I have mostly never heard of, and if I like even one, I feel like I have had a meaningful day. So I kind of feel for the obtuseness that is being unconsciously displayed by LGM.
Kay
@Immanentize:
The yard signs in Michigan were so long– too many words for a yard sign. Because they can’t say it’s about womens autonomy and agency so they have to do some bizarre Right wing code word anti trans shit.
They had a mailer in Ohio that was just a photo of a drag queen -some garbled nonsense but the photo was intended to have people recoiling in horror, I guess. They just don’t react that way because they’re not freakish, terminally online Right wing incels. I was like fleeting “lot of blue eyeshadow” – into the recycling!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@MisterDancer: I was too pale to come up in hip hop. I haven’t really followed Morrisey or his attitudes in decades. When the Smiths broke up I never really gave his solo stuff a shot. Sad to hear he’s a straight up racist though. He was always kind of an awful person which is why The Smiths broke up.
I did listen to some hip hop back in the day – mostly Native Tongues stuff and stuff similar (The Black Sheep, The Digable Planets, Public Enemy etc. and later The Roots). I would NOT say I came up in the genre though. The gangsta stuff was just way too misogynistic for me to ever get into. It wasn’t the railing against the cops it was the way they talked about women…just couldn’t get over that.
I will give Lamar another chance. Enough people whose opinion I respect seem to think he’s brilliant so it’s worth a shot.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: Yes, he does. He posted early this morning that he could see fires from his front porch
Suzanne
@eversor:
They’re so fucken broken.
And Yglesias calls us neurotic, LAWL.
rikyrah
@NotMax:
Stay safe
Barbara
@Kay: As I told my husband this morning, the idea that someone, anyone would force another person to get surgery kind of falls like a thud when you have a very good idea how many hoops you have to go through just to get surgery you actually want and need. What universe do these people live in? is a question that must present itself pretty quickly after being exposed to this kind of messaging.
geg6
@UncleEbeneezer:
OMG, so true!
eclare
@Immanentize:
Yes, that is terrifying!
Brachiator
@UncleEbeneezer:
I still haven’t seen the Barbie movie yet and keep trying to avoid spoiler details about it. But I had also fallen out of going out to the movies. Such conflicting thoughts.
I don’t think I had heard an Indigo Girls song before, but I just didn’t care for that genre of music. It’s the kind of song that would have played on an alternative/progressive rock radio station that I never listened to. But there were plenty of other women artists that I loved. Music was never about proving masculinity.
I always liked the sass of this lyric from the Rolling Stones Satisfaction:
The arbitrary trivia that supposedly defined a man always seemed ridiculous.
eclare
@NotMax:
Thinking of you and Maui, stay safe! Prep a go bag!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@UncleEbeneezer: I dabble these days in a bunch of different genres but it’s getting harder to find anything that really sticks. I like Phoenix’s latest album Alpha Zulu. Prior to that I think to this day that Fleet Foxes’ Shore is great, arguably the best thing they’ve done. It’s a flat out mellow, generous, gorgeous folk rock masterpiece IMO. But I discover albums that I can listen too multiple times are harder and harder to find. I’ve always tried to fight the impulse that “music these days sucks” because as a GenXer that’s all I heard from the Boomers. But I really am having difficulty finding new stuff I like. It should be easier than ever with Spotify etc. making huge music libraries available for free but somehow it seems harder to sort through the dross to find anything good. I used to be able to rely on “best album of the year” lists but even those let me down a lot these days.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I guess the failure to evolve in response to new information (for example, “voters hate my agenda”) is a function of two things: 1) lack of accountability to voters, and 2) endless money from hard-right oligarchs. If you think of it in commercial terms, you could run a cow shit pie shop indefinitely if you didn’t have to persuade customers to eat it or otherwise worry about profits.
UncleEbeneezer
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I love artists that play songs slightly different every night. That is very much my thing both as a fan and as a musician. I have bookmarks for multiple versions of the same song played by: Brad Meldhau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Julian Lage, Phish, Living Colour, The Codetalkers etc., and definitely have my strong fave versions/shows. So I totally get that. I just never really felt that way about The Dead. I like my guitar a little more overdriven, my drums a little more funky and the overall vibe a little more “rock” than 60’s hippie. I love Jazz Is Dead (with Jimmy Herring and Billy Cobham) and the album Terrapin Station, but otherwise could kinda care less about The Dead. I would’ve much preferred a ticket to Phish or The Black Crowes or Primus (or the much lesser known bands like The Codetalkers and RAQ) when I was still into jamband shows.
geg6
@rikyrah:
I caught a bit of Morning Joe this morning and they were talking exactly about that very thing.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@eversor: My first real concert was Camper Van Beethoven in 1988 (Stadium Arena Grand Rapids, MI). I saw The Monkees on a nostalgia tour sometime around I think 1985? We were at the beach at Grand Haven MI…my friend’s parents had taken us and they were way into the “Oldies” and we’re walking back to the car and see a sign for a free concert that the Monkees were headlining. So we figures why not, it’s free? I think Herman’s Hermits and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap Band were on the bill too. Maybe, if memory serves, Paul Revere and the Raiders. Was actually a fun concert. I’m listening to Andrew Hickey’s A History of Rock Music in 500 songs and it’s fun to think I saw these bands he’s talking about even if it wasn’t in their heyday.
Kay
@Barbara:
How likely do you think it is that a medical practicioner will perform surgery on a minor without parents or guardians consent? I am what I am so I immediately get caught up logistics – they would…take the bus and then sign in and present their insurance card (?) and are listed as a guarantor on the account….
When my youngest child had eye surgery three different surgical people verified with me that it was the right eye, which they marked with a sharpie. That’s their process. That was after a referral from his primary, the wait for a childrens eye specialist, and everyone takes days off for trips to Ann Arbor culminating 3 months later with surgery.
Do they navigate the world in any real sense? What universe is this?
UncleEbeneezer
@Brachiator:
“Music was never about proving masculinity.”
Good for you. Not even being snarky. That’s a much healthier attitude than so many of us had as young boys.
eclare
@Suzanne:
I had tons of Barbie stuff but my mom refused to let me have baby dolls, she thought they sent the wrong message preparing five year olds to be moms. Of course I am an only child…and don’t have kids…
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@UncleEbeneezer: I was into Pixies…everyone claimed later that they were totally into them but everyone was selectively re-editing their formative years because I remember like 2 other people on campus who were into them.
Jeffro
Here’s hoping that the snooze media can rouse itself to cover the impending (and long overdue) GOP civil war with even a tenth the intensity that they’ve brought to Hunter Biden’s laptop
geg6
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
An absolute abomination. I refuse to listen to it. The original is perfection and some asshole country dimwit has to ruin it. Another reason I despise country music in general.
eversor
@Suzanne:
It’s so odd that everyone else to them is the perverts, sex crazed, and weird. Then follow it up with “I was scared of women, scared of pussy, and really scared of sex. Heterosexuality is something I achieved! It was traumatic.”
No, you are the fucking odd one.
eclare
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Check out Obama’s summer music lists, great mix of old and new from someone who appreciates good, diverse music.
https://pitchfork.com/news/barack-obama-shares-2023-summer-playlist-sza-boygenius-janelle-monae-bob-dylan-and-more/
Betty Cracker
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m in the same boat musically (i.e., don’t want to be that middle-age scold who told my younger self our music was garbage). There are genres I’m not particularly fond of, so that somewhat limits my opportunities for exposure to new music on commercial stations. Platform algorithms don’t work for me.
One thing I find helpful is community radio stations staffed by volunteers. They’re still out there, and since they’re online, it doesn’t matter where you live. Tampa has a good one: WMNF.org. I don’t love all the shows, but some are great, and I regularly discover new bands and tunes that become essential playlist items.
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay: I hope so. For me, “them losing” would begin with some righteous beatdowns locally. Which I don’t see happening in the near future. :(
eversor
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
DC had, and still does (but less) a lot more underground venues that famous artists still frequent as it’s just a good time. The first massive one I went to was lolapoloza I think. It was good fun! Snoop Dog was there! But I didn’t like it as much as the clubs.
We have massive EDM fests as well now and I don’t like those either. I still prefer the clubs.
Jeffro
This right here.
geg6
@UncleEbeneezer:
If a band or artist was ever highly popular and/or charted regularly on the Hot 100, the LGM crew consider that the band/artist, ipso facto, is horrible and not to be taken seriously by musicologists, tastemakers and music historians such as the typical LGM commenter.
Kay
@geg6:
I love the weird intersect of BJ and LGM. We’re always “those people over there are…”
lol
I can’t stand how visually cluttered LGM is, which also saved me from Facebook. I hate how Facebook looks.
Barbara
@geg6: My theory of everything: Whatever category you can think of, be it food, music, clothing, baby names, whatever, there are evangelists (“I love it and I want you to love it too!”) and exclusivists (“It has to be bad if too many other people like it.”)
So when the kale salad brigade learns that you can now get kale salad at Applebee’s, they will let you know that it has to be organic Tuscan kale sourced from a single farm in the Central Valley to be considered acceptable.
I just find this phenomenon to be particularly obnoxious when it comes to music, because music is supposed to be social, and shared with others.
What do I know. My sources for new music in the past decade are my studio’s fitness tapes (Billie Eilish, Flor-Ida, Bastille, Lizzo); ice skating competitions (Gladiator soundtrack, various); reruns of Cold Case (Lamar Kendrick), and so on. Not exactly comprehensive.
eversor
@Suzanne:
Also remembering when they all got confused over the Wet Ass Pussy song and Ben Shapiro sort of spoke talked the song on air. Then claimed it wasn’t possible to have a wet pussy, unless you had a medical condition, and then all the Bible Bangers backed him up on it. Which is another mind blowing sort of thing to wrap your head around.
How do you people reproduce?
Suzanne
@eversor: It’s easy if you just don’t care!
Read this, if you want to throw up/get insight into right-wing Christian mindset.
Why A Wife Should Endure Painful Sex with Her Husband
Uncle Cosmo
Somewhat o/t, but for anyone looking for a(nother) reason for hope:
Somehow (dogonlynose how) we have had that nearly unimaginable force in our hands, ready for use, for nearly 8 decades – and have not.
laura
@Kay: get ready to throw rocks at my head- I love Eric Loomis’ weekly list of records he played- especially when he reaches back into yesteryear for gems that I sometimes have in my record collection, or stuff I’ve never heard of before. I generally couldn’t care less about who’s hip and who’s cool and who decides those sorts of things because at the end of the day, I like what I like and what I like is a vast ocean of music genres and styles and arrangements with the exception of bro-y and commercial Nashville country. Atonal Thelonious Monk, bright pop Dee-Lite, moody, West Coast jazz, Metal, punk give it to me right now!
Brachiator
@UncleEbeneezer:
RE: “Music was never about proving masculinity.”
I was raised by women and always had women looking after me. I also had male role models who were not macho, but who were secure in who they were.
And this is not bragging about some early overt consciousness about gender, etc, but growing up there were male peers who seemed alternately fascinated and appalled by women. There were guys who were always trying to get sex from women, or at least talking about getting sex from women. This is early teens. Pre teen years. And there were guys who I saw mistreat women. I admit that sometimes I had to pretend to have similar attitudes in order to be accepted by the group. But I remember thinking early on that I would never be one of these kind of guys. And I tried to separate myself from this group as soon as I could.
Back to music. Always tons of pop and jazz singers, men and women I loved. It would have been absurd to ever say that women singers were inferior to men in a universe with Nina Simone and Sarah Vaughn.
eversor
@Suzanne:
Oh I’m well aware of that and while it might be a right wing Christian mindset, actual Christianity gives women no rights compared to the men. So the right wingers are just the ones doing Christianity correct here. The “Christianity is not really about patriarchy” types are still fucking lying on the level of “Hitler was all about making sure the trains ran on time” level assholes. Or “the Civil War was about states rights” level liars. And in my life sure as death and taxes they will go down as that because the younger generations see that.
Kay
@laura:
I’m glad. I think they’re fine! I just think it’s funny how every once in a while someone here will reference over there :)
Kay
@Suzanne:
I don’t know if you saw this. More on this creepy fringe incel who has been inexplicably embraced and promoted by people who pass themselves off as smart:
We’re going to win this. These people are fringe freaks and they will not be able to “reform” the Civil Rights Act and the Reconstruction Amendemnts and gut all legal protections for women and minorities- Title IX, etc. – the stated goal – but I think we should be aware of how far they have inserted themselves into elite opinion. They’re in.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Heh, I get exposure to the new stuff by osmosis. If you work closely with students on a college campus, you have no choice. At least that’s how I see it, but many of my colleagues of similar age have no clue about current music and sneer at it without ever really giving it a chance. There’s lots of good new music and I am an old who is here for it!
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2:
Dang, them Duke Boys are at it agin’!
tam1MI
I was at that concert! I was the crazy woman dancing on top of the chair…
Citizen Alan
@West of the Rockies:
The most cringe thing ever, IMO, is the use of the word “cringe” as an adjective. It’s nothing but a tool for gatekeeping used by snotty hipster who hate anything that is commercially popular.
Citizen Alan
@eversor:
Sounds to me like he’s asexual but in denial over it because his religious and political views demand that he be a heterosexual because anything else–even none of the above–is unacceptable.
Citizen Alan
@Uncle Cosmo:
I genuinely consider it a miracle that Shitgibbon never nuked anyone. I’m certain he wanted to but was talked out of it by generals.
Kayla Rudbek
@Kay: the Notre Dame law school is in its own little bubble. I remember being in undergrad and seeing the editorials from Charles Rice about how working women were selfish. That’s one grave that I’d like to dance upon when I go back for my next reunion.
Elizabelle
@Citizen Alan: I think that what kept Trump from starting a war was his observation of the public scorn of GW Bush, with the failed Iraq war.
He has been all about avoiding humiliation, to the extent possible.
Plus, generals no doubt did talk him out of some of his wilder commands. (Dealing with the BLM protesters in Lafayette Park, etc.)
UncleEbeneezer
@laura: Loomis’ Music Threads are really great for discovering new artists. I just ignore his opinions and the comments.
UncleEbeneezer
@geg6: Some tv series have great soundtracks that have made me explore new artists. Dickinson and Killing Eve are two of them.