Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

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

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights

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Catherine Rampell, who usually writes about economics for the Washington Post, explains why “Right-wing pundits tremble in fear of … tap-dancing”. [Unpaywalled gift link]:

… Last week, first lady Jill Biden shared a festive holiday video of tap troupe Dorrance Dance performing their swingin’ spin on “The Nutcracker,” set to a jazz arrangement by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

Festooned with wide smiles, whimsical headpieces and a healthy helping of sequins, the dancers percuss their way around the White House. Familiar characters from the “Nutcracker” — such as a rodent king and the young heroine Clara — sprinkle kinetic joy through the East Wing’s Christmas trees. The video opens and closes with saucy flourishes from “Sugar Rum Cherry” (performed by co-choreographer Josette Wiggan).

The piece is wholesome and exuberant. As a longtime admirer of Dorrance Dance, I watched the two-minute clip over and over when it was released and gushed over it with my dance-nerd friends.

Not every viewer was enthralled, though. Over in the right-wing mediaverse, people practically lost their minds…

Some were pretty explicit that what set them off about the tap-dance troupe was that it has — gasp! — Black people in it. (“It’s diverse as hell. They had to do that. It had to be a DEI video,” said Newsmax host Rob Schmitt.) Most, however, objected to materials on the dance organization’s website devoted to fighting racism and lifting up Black artists.

“It is our job to tell the history of tap dance as a celebration of Black culture and also the never-ending struggle against systemic racism and white supremacy in this country — the origin story of appropriation in American culture,” writes the troupe’s founder, MacArthur “Genius” grantee Michelle Dorrance, who is White…

======


Here’s another Washington Post gift link, from national treasure Alexandra Petri — “GOP baffled that ‘We Don’t Care if You Die’ is not a winning slogan“:

Huh! It turns out “Well, with luck, you probably won’t die being forced to give birth to a nonviable fetus over the objections of your doctor!” — even if you say it in a warm, human-sounding way ― is not actually what people want to hear when deciding how to cast their votes. Fascinating!

People keep hearing stories like that of Kate Cox, whose medically recommended abortion to end a nonviable pregnancy and preserve her fertility was shut down by the Texas Supreme Court, and saying, “Wait, is that actually your policy? Jesus!” and it turns out that “Yup!” or “Pretty much!” is not a winning answer. Also not great: “Please hold while the Supreme Court figures out if it wants to impose even more restrictions on what medical care you are allowed to receive!”…

“Wait, you seriously don’t want any exceptions, and you are going to weaponize government against people with reasonable medical needs?” is a question to which “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it” is not a great answer. Or maybe they could stop trying to dehumanize half the population? No. It’s the words. It’s got to be the words.

There’s no changing the underlying policy. That’s out of the question! It’s just unfortunate that so many people see these stories of people struggling to get their abortions and say, “That could be me!” The time-tested Republican response of, “Nonsense! You don’t have a uterus!” only works about 50 percent of the time. If it fails, they are stuck saying things such as “Yikes!” and “Woof!” and “With a condition like that, are you sure you should be voting?”

I wonder why this is so difficult to talk about! Maybe what Republicans need is a better slogan. “Sometimes, too many rights are actually a burden” and “Do you ever get tired of making decisions for yourself?” and “Relax: We’ve got it! But let us know if you think you’re bleeding to death” turn out not to be winners, as far as slogans go. Same for, “You Don’t Get a Say, and We Don’t Care if You Die,” even if you say it with a lot of warm eye contact. Also bad: “You Don’t Get a Say, We Will Laugh at What Your Doctor Says, and We Want You to Do Everything But Die.”…

Reader Interactions

201Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I guess I’m the only one awake this AM.

    ETA: I saw that dance video when it first came out. Pretty damned cool. So it was inevitable that GOPers would lose their shit over it.

  4. 4.

    frosty

    @OzarkHillbilly: Nope. I was awake at 6:30 after a good night’s sleep of 4 1/2 hours. I do OK on 6 or 7 but it’s shrinking and it sucks. I have a physical this week, I’ll see if my doc has any suggestions.​

    @rikyrah: ​Good morning to you too!

  9. 9.

    Scout211

    I posted this NYT opinion piece a few days ago.  It fits here this morning (and every morning).  What Happened to Kate Cox Is Tragic, and Completely Expected

    By Greer Donley
    Ms. Donley is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh whose research includes the workability of medical exceptions to abortion regulations.

     

    What is clear to me is that the Texas Supreme Court would have needed to make a broad and compassionate interpretation of the law for Ms. Cox to meet the high bar of that exception. Instead, the court interpreted the law narrowly — which is exactly what the state lawmakers who passed the legislation were hoping for. And the results have been tragic.

    She concludes in her opinion piece:

    But if trisomy 18 doesn’t count as lethal, hardly any fetal diagnosis does. The prognoses of most severe fetal anomalies are complex, involving varying risks of stillbirth and infant mortality, coupled with significant risk of severe disability in survivors, a subset of whom will die in childhood. There is no categorical way to distinguish the diagnoses that are worthy of exemption in anti-abortion laws and those that are not.

    The Dobbs decision greenlit a patchwork of abortion bans that are inherently standardless and functionally unworkable, forcing judges with no medical background into the business of making medical judgments. The boundaries between fatal and nonfatal, therapeutic and elective, and even abortion and miscarriage are blurry for medical professionals; they are virtually impossible to decipher for the lawyers and judges who have to navigate them.

    This problem cannot be solved with clearer language; it is a problem intrinsic to the Dobbs ruling that allowed the complicated experience of pregnancy into the courtroom. The only way forward is to protect abortion, no matter the reason — to refuse to play the game of “good” abortion versus “bad” abortion. What happened to Kate Cox, and so many patients like her, is a symptom of a broken law that cannot be fixed.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    Look, tap dancing will inevitably lead to …jazz, and then it’s just a slippery slope down to hell. It’s just basic logic.

  14. 14.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: Risk of penile fractures rises at Christmas, doctors find

    A timely reminder to read all the instructions and safety warnings before playing with your new present.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    @Scout211: Ms. Donley is correct. The TX Supreme Court ruling condescendingly refers to Cox’s doctor’s “good faith” medical opinion of the danger Cox faced and then overruled it, as if they have medical expertise Cox’s physician lacks. It was breathtakingly arrogant overreach.

  17. 17.

    Gin & Tonic

    Here’s something that’s been bugging me. I vaguely recall a story about a British spy, whose cover was that he wasn’t British, but somewhere (Moscow?) his cover was blown when he came to a pedestrian crosswalk and instinctively looked right instead of left. I just don’t know if that was fiction (Le Carre?) or fact. Who can fill in the copious missing information?

  22. 22.

    Dagaetch

    @Gin & Tonic: ​I doubt it’s the example you’re thinking of, but in Red Storm Rising (by Tom Clancy) a Soviet Spetsnaz operator does that and gets hit by a car, exposing his operation.

  23. 23.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Okay conservatives, try the Mathew Bourne version of the Nutcracker, instead.  We saw it years ago on Ovation’s annual Battle of the Nutcrackers and loved it but unfortunately there’s nowhere to watch the full show anymore.  It’s very spicy with a ton of suggestive and homoerotic undertones.  The sets and costumes are also amazing.  It would make Republicans heads explode (again).

  24. 24.

    Tony G

    Freaking out over tap dancing!  These Fascist freaks only feel joy when they are harming someone else.  Repulsive.

  25. 25.

    andy

    I guess between AA people tap dancing and Musk’s X AI refusing to use the N word it’s been a hard hard week for the garbage people. They’ve been putting off parking their stupid asses in front of a mirror and having themselves a long think since Watergate- and it shows.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    As we all know, “Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.” – LOLGOP

    It’s all about grabbing attention to themselves.

    Nice video, and it’s great to see people being happy and doing nice, amazing things.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    Rusty

    This weekend I was at a Christmas African step performance (the troupe is Step Afrika).  It’s another form of percussive step dance that comes out of the fraternities and sororities of HBCU’s.  Similar to the tap dance performance it was glittery, loud, referential to Christmas, the Nutcracker and winter, and also exuberant and joyous.  There was a mix of hip-hop and other music spun by a DJ.  It’s the first time I’ve been at a performance where several times during the show a good chunk of the audience was on stage dancing.  It was great experience.  The right seems frozen in a vision of Christmas from a 1950’s movie.  From a religious standpoint it’s equally odd.  The Evangelicals don’t follow the liturgical calendar except for the dates of Christmas and Easter.  Advent is barely recognized or ignored, Holy Week at Easter is equally barely mentioned or ignored.  Christmas this year is unusual, Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday and is both Christmas Eve and the 4th Sunday of Advent.  Traditional churches will have an advent service in the morning, and the Christmas Eve service in the evening.  The truly devote will have a Christmas Day service too.  I’m betting there will be plenty of Evangelical churches that will have just the Christmas Eve service.  Where are the protests about that?  (And there are churches this year that started Advent a week early so they could skip the Sunday morning service on Christmas Eve.)  If you really cared about Christmas, your ire would be otherwise directed.  Shopping, saying “Merry Christmas”, the Nutcracker and more have little to nothing to do with actual religious observance of Christmas.  All this protest is just more cultural bullshit.

  28. 28.

    montanareddog

    @Gin & Tonic:  In real life, that seems a rather flimsy reason to suspect someone of being a deep cover agent. There are foreigners, and british people who have lived overseas, living in the UK!  And one-way streets.

    So, I suspect it is fictional, unless there is more to the story

     

    ETA: should have read your comment better the first time. You are talking about a British spy, possibly in Moscow. I think that it is probably fictional but is much more feasible in a paranoid closed society like the old Soviet Union. At least, as the starting point for a deep cover being unravelled.

  29. 29.

    Quinerly

    5 years ago Mattis resigned. And we all thought it was a BFD. Can we all agree that we were pretty fucking naive? Did we have a clue about everything that would come next during the last 5 years? How much havoc and damage one failed game show host could do?

    I had saved this blurb. Unfortunately, I don’t have the actual link.

    “There’s going to be an intervention,” one former senior administration official said speculatively. “Jim Mattis just sent a shot across the bow. He’s the most credible member of the administration by five grades of magnitude. He’s the steady, safe set of hands. And this letter is brutal. He quit because of the madness.”

    Looks like the follow up “shot” was his 320 page book on “leadership” that as I recall barely mentioned Trump.

    *****

    Have a wonderful holiday, BJers! JoJo las Orejas and I are on the road for a couple of weeks. Maybe more. Backroads of Northern AZ with a short stay in Prescott; Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the beautiful La Posada in Winslow; and NYE in Cameron, AZ at the edge of Navajo Nation and the Grand Canyon.

    Take care, everyone!!!!

  33. 33.

    catclub

    @Rusty: (And there are churches this year that started Advent a week early so they could skip the Sunday morning service on Christmas Eve.)

     

    okay, this is too far. where is my advent police fainting couch?

  40. 40.

    Chris

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I can think of at least two incidents, one in The Great Escape and one in Inglorious Basterds, that similarly involve a Briton undercover giving himself away through reflex (in the second case, the exact same kind of ingrained cultural habit).  Can’t say I remember one involving the crosswalk thing, though.

  42. 42.

    Another Scott

    @Rusty:

    A few years ago I went to a Christmas eve service at my step-mom’s Moravian church in NC.  They had a special event – a “Love Feast” – and invited everyone in the area.  It was nice, very inclusive, and almost non-denominational.  The “feast” was pieces of a sweet cake.  The place was packed.

    She was the treasurer of the church and I heard her and some of the church staff talking afterwards about how successful it was, that everyone loved it, and how it was a great fundraiser.

    There are lots of reasons to be nice and accepting. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    @Ken:

    A timely reminder to read all the instructions and safety warnings before playing with your new present. 

    And don’t stick your dick in it.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Chris: It might be The Great Escape that sticks in my mind for some reason.

    One of the good guys can’t get “leftenant” to stick in his brain and keeps saying “lieutenant” instead…

    That’s about all I remember about that movie!

    Memory is strange.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    mrmoshpotato

    “It’s diverse as hell. They had to do that. It had to be a DEI video,” said Newsmax host Rob Schmitt.

    What a sad, sad man.

  51. 51.

    Soprano2

    @Rusty: The right seems frozen in a vision of Christmas from a 1950’s movie.  From a religious standpoint it’s equally odd.

    This is true; however, I don’t care how they want to celebrate Christmas, I hate how they try to impose what they want on everyone else. It’s yet more evidence that what they’re trying to do is make the world comfortable for themselves, so they don’t ever have to see anything they think is “weird” or that makes them feel uncomfortable. I guess they care about this for some of the same reasons we made fun of Melania’s Christmas decorations, but it seems like something weird to get all worked up about. Musicians and dancers have been borrowing from each other’s works forever, reworking and reimagining them. People from the mid-1800’s would probably find many of the things we do for Christmas now “weird”.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: It reminds me that we still get to look forward to Defector’s 2023 Edition of “What Did We Get Stuck in Our Rectums Last Year?”. Here’s 2022’s list, in case you’re curious. (It includes other orifi, as well.)

    My sinuses hurt and I got voluntold by my kid to make a bunch of cookies. So no nap for me.

    ETA:

    “DROPPED HIS OTTERPOP ONTO THE FLOOR WHICH WAS COVERED IN METAL SHAVINGS FROM A DRILL PRESS, AND CONTINUED TO EAT THE OTTERPOP”

     
    Future Republican voter right there.

  53. 53.

    sab

    Re reaction to Dorrance Dance tapping in the White House. It almost made me feel sorry for Republican complainers.

    I am 70 years old and they made me feel like a 10 year old on Christmas Eve. Hopeful and full of joy.

    I would hate to live with an an ideology in my head  that makes me miss all that.

  55. 55.

    sdhays

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s fine to see it and think, “not my thing”, because nothing works for everyone. But the reactions saying it’s like a Clockwork Orange or “if only we had Mrs. ‘Who gives a fuck about Christmas’ decorating the White House like Halls of Doom” are just sad.

    Sure, Jan. Tap dancing a Jazz Nutcracker is a Sign of the Apocalypse and also too joyful for the Christmas season.

  56. 56.

    Quinerly

    @catclub: thanks! This will be my second Christmas in Winslow and at the Grand Canyon around Christmas. I got caught in Flag with that terrible and ice/snow storm that closed down I 40 NYE last year. Thankfully, had moved from a cabin near Sedona and into a crappy motel in Flag in preparation for the storm. I love the Navajo run Cameron Trading Post, Motel, and Restaurant near the less traveled east/Desert View entrance. Will be my 6th stay there over the years. Nice folks. Great food.  I will change it up next year but when I snagged my favorite and popular room (The FDR Room) when I checked in last year….it was available this year, a year in advance, I had to take it. First time stay for me in Prescott between Christmas and New Years.

    More than likely will stay home next Christmas. I’m a bit obsessed with trying to put together a Fall trip from the Montana/Canada border on US 191 to the Arizona/Mexico border. The entire stretch is almost 2000 miles. Take 2 months after Labor Day. I have been on several stretches of it over the years in Utah and AZ; but, of course, never started at the top and worked my way down. Will take months of planning with the way I travel. Lots of uncharted turf. 191 pretty much goes through Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs. Will be a camping and hoteling trip if I can pull it off.

  57. 57.

    Chris

    @Rusty:

    The right seems frozen in a vision of Christmas from a 1950’s movie.

    One of my favorite* things is listing the mind-boggling number of pop culture items that are generally accepted as normal but would cause a gigantic outpouring of fury about “the woke agenda” if they came out today.

    Among those things: the songs “Mele Kalikimaka” (1949) and “Feliz Navidad” (1970).

    * Not intended to be a literal statement.

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @sdhays: It’s really one of the most unappealing things about right-wingers, from a personality perspective. Like, why do you care that I don’t like your beer, or your truck, or your music, or your whatever?

    The answer that they don’t want to admit to is that they believe they have earned my esteem in some way, and that I am denying them something that they earned by not giving a shit.

  61. 61.

    lowtechcyclist

    Some were pretty explicit that what set them off about the tap-dance troupe was that it has — gasp! — Black people in it. (“It’s diverse as hell. They had to do that. It had to be a DEI video,” said Newsmax host Rob Schmitt.) Most, however, objected to materials on the dance organization’s website devoted to fighting racism and lifting up Black artists.

    It takes so little to set them off.

    Which reminds me, there was a wingnut named Noah Rothman, one of whose tweets was in AL’s Covid post this morning. His most recent book is titled, “The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun.”

    Come again? Whose war on fun? Can’t even enjoy a little bit of tap-dancing because it might be too ‘woke’ for you?

    And speaking of fun, his party is the one that wants to make sure that women having sex suffer consequences. And won’t let gay, trans, genderfluid, etc. persons just live their lives, but have to do their damnedest to see that their lives are the exact opposite of fun.

  64. 64.

    RevRick

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ironic that since the original Saint Nicholas, upon whom the Dutch Santa Claus is based, was a swarthy Mediterranean man who rescued three destitute girls from forced prostitution, by dropping sacks of gold coins through a window so that their fathers could provide a dowry for them.

  65. 65.

    montanareddog

    @Another Scott: My memory of The Great Escape is vague, too, but I do recall one of the escapees (in civvies) having his papers checked and saying “you’re welcome” or something when the policeman thanks him in English. I think that is the scene to which Chris is referring.

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Suzanne: Reminds me of the guy who got his scrotum caught in a belt sander while jerking off, causing an instantaneous amputation of one of his testes (never to be seen again), than tried to staple his scrotum back together with a staple gun. Finally succumbed to his pain and went to a doc 3 or 4 days later after it had swollen to the size of a grapefruit.
    I read about in a mag at a doctors office we were expanding.​

  67. 67.

    dm

    It’s worth it to read Rampell’s piece, if only for its concluding paragraphs:

     

    Perhaps, then, the right-wing cultural anxiety surrounding this charming White House holiday video is not entirely baseless. Tap in general is deceptively subversive. And this particular holiday performance features Black dancers, interpreting a work co-created by a Black choreographer, using an artistic medium borne of the Black diaspora, performed in a seat of global power built by Black enslaved people.

    Rarely has there been a more American Christmas story.

  68. 68.

    Alison Rose

    Also, as a former tap dancer (for like…two years…as a tiny child), I am personally offended. How can anyone hate something that fun.

    Well actually my family probably did since I refused to take my tap shoes off in the house and was constantly scampering all over the kitchen floor. But other than that…

  71. 71.

    Nelle

    @Quinerly: DId you just describe my dad?  He was a great one for wandering around wherever I lived and coming back to the house with all these stories of such interesting stories from people he met.  It’s so lovely to find others doing it.  Safe travels and bring us your stories.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … RollCall.com:

    […]

    The bill, passed by unanimous consent Tuesday evening, now goes to the president and would be the second extension of the FAA’s funding authority in the last three months as senators continue to negotiate a long-term FAA reauthorization bill that’s been held up since June.

    […]

    Senators had expected to pass the extension bill shortly after the House approved it last week. But Bennet on Thursday blocked an effort to quickly pass it on the Senate floor, leveraging the FAA’s end-of-year funding authority deadline to urge a deal on funding for Ukraine.

    Without an extension, the FAA on Jan. 1 would lose its authority to collect revenues from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund — financed by excise taxes on passengers, cargo and fuel that funds airport infrastructure projects and other aviation programs. The bill would provide for a simple extension of the FAA’s current funding authority without any policy riders.

    Bennet said his block forced senators to return this week and continue negotiations on border policy changes, which Republicans want as a part of the supplemental spending package that would provide additional armament to Ukraine. Senators did not reach an agreement on supplemental text, but Bennet lifted his block after Senate leadership assured him they would “take swift action on the supplemental national security legislation early in the new year,” Bennet said in a statement.

    “I don’t think we would have come back, probably, from our departure last week if we didn’t have the unfinished business of the FAA to do,” Bennet said on the floor Tuesday night. “And while the FAA is unrelated to the Ukraine funding … It was something that could force us to come back here to continue to have the debate.”

    The extension would provide lawmakers extra time to negotiate and pass a long-term reauthorization of the FAA. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Cruz indicated that they’re hoping to get the bill done soon — especially as safety concerns with the nation’s air traffic control system are mounting pressure on lawmakers to pass key aviation policies.

    The Senate’s five-year FAA reauthorization bill has stalled since June, when Schumer objected to language from Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., on pilot training requirements. The House passed its full reauthorization bill in July.

    Thune’s language would allow would-be pilots to count “enhanced training” that could include time on flight simulators toward their required 1,500 hours of in-flight experience to become certified.

    Cantwell said they are close to an agreement on changes to pilot training requirements. But the committee is still working through other contentious issues, like an effort to add more flight slots to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and raise the pilot retirement age.

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    Simulator time is valuable, but it’s not the same as actually flying a plane, so good for Schumer in fighting that provision. Lots of the reps in districts close to DCA do NOT want more flights because of the noise issues. (Click on the Noise tab on the left.  The round colored circles near the river give live sound pressure levels.) So, there’s still horse-trading to be done.

    I’m still convinced something approaching Biden’s Supplemental will pass (along with some stuff that we won’t like). Politics is slow.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    RevRick

    @Alison Rose: The fuck your feelings crowd is totally about their feelings. Professor Karen Ashcraft talks about Grievance Manhood, which is the feeling of rightwing men, and their female supporters, but is not based in objective reality. All the squawking about critical race theory and diversity, equality, inclusion efforts is about the butthurt of white people. A good deal of the anti abortion movement is based in the feeling that a fetus is a person. The gun nuts scream about freedom, but peal that onion and you find it’s all about feeling like a man. Ditto opposition to efforts to stop climate change, which has no scientific basis whatsoever, but is about feelings regarding social privilege.

  78. 78.

    kindness

    It’s difficult to explain those ‘liberals’ who think Biden is bad & won’t vote for him because they didn’t get their student loans forgiven or that Biden isn’t stopping Bibi from murdering Palestinians.  Difficult because most of us understand Joe isn’t a king.  Joe isn’t a wizard who can wave a wand.  Difficult because the statement those ‘liberals’ are making is me, me, me.  They’re looking at the world as an singular person, not a linked group trying to make things better.  They completely ignore the alternatives to Biden losing in ’24.  I had several Bernie friends that voted for Jill Stein in ’16 because those of us who didn’t pick Bernie to run deserved to have Trump win.  It’s hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that some people didn’t learn from that lesson.  Those friends lost too when Trump won.  Their disdain did not help any of us.  And some ‘liberals’ are going to do it again, history be damned.

  81. 81.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @OzarkHillbilly: I mean, even in the 1950s black people tap dancing was, like, mainstream. In fact there were many, many professions black people were actively or passively deterred from pursuing in the 1950s, but tap dancing was definitely not one of them, and in fact that and other entertainment careers were one of the career paths open to black people.

    So, like, IDK what they want to go back to but it’s further back than the 1950s if it even ever existed in America, which I suspect it didn’t. It’s more like they want to enter an alternate reality where black people (and probably other people of color) never existed in America.

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: Um…the guy was jerking off while he was operating a fucking belt sander? I mean…Jesus Christ.

    There’s a joke in there about ball polishing somewhere, but I don’t feel up to making it.

    I only trust that the guy rendered himself incapable of reproducing, because such boggling stupidity really, really should not survive  to pollute the gene pool.

  87. 87.

    suzanne

    @RevRick: Tyler Cowen has noted that all of our political fights in this country in recent years are about relative social status. Nothing is about actual status improvement for people. It’s all fights over who gets to feel more important and esteemed.

    Thats why it all feels so fucken dumb.

  88. 88.

    Quinerly

    @Nelle: this made my smile. I got this gene from my father and to a certain extent his mother. My dad had been in WW2 and stuck with the Reserves after so he could get some extra benefits when he was in his 60’s. His hobby became flying with an old duffle bag “Space Available” from base to base, many times making his way from Eastern NC to Scott AFB near me in St. Louis. He did this well into his 70’s…always collecting stories…mostly from the people he met and making notes. Never direct routes and a lot of flight diversions. Lots and lots of stories. His mother had married 4 times, all marriages done by 1934 and lived to 1983 single. I have her papers, letters, notebooks, and old passports. She was all over Cuba, Jamaica, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada….and Key West  in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Quite the adventures for an Alabama born and “breaded” Chick. (Obviously, she didn’t rear my dad….that’s another story)

  89. 89.

    Scout211

    Judge reverses earlier decision and allows removal of Confederate memorial at Arlington Cemetery

    A federal judge on Tuesday allowed the Arlington National Cemetery to remove a century-old Confederate memorial one day after blocking the removal over a report that gravesites were disturbed.

    At a hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston said he issued the temporary injunction Monday after receiving an urgent phone call from the memorial’s supporters saying that gravesites adjacent to the memorial were being desecrated as contractors began work to remove the memorial.

    He said he toured the site before Tuesday’s hearing and saw the site being treated respectfully.

    Alston issued an 18-page opinion Tuesday evening to lift the injunction. He said the allegations that the removal efforts amounted to grave desecration “were, at best, ill-informed and, at worst, inaccurate.”

    You mean the memorial’s supporters lied to the judge to get the removal of the offensive memorial stopped? Unpossible.

  90. 90.

    Barbara

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, the Rockettes, hell, the June Taylor dancers on the Jackie Gleason show — any of them would have been at home with a jazzy tap dance or soft shoe take off on the Nutcracker.  For all I know, the Rockettes have actually done such a routine.

    What Laura Ingraham (she apparently lost her shit) and others don’t like is crediting an art form to African-American cultural heritage.

  92. 92.

    Tony G

    @kindness: The phrase “the lesser of two evils” is often disparaged but, from my point of view, as a bitter old Boomer, that is the only choice we have, in every election.  Pick the candidate you dislike the most (always the Republican, from my point of view) and then vote for the candidate that has the best chance of defeating that despised candidate.  Anything else is childish, given the fact that (I think) a third-party candidate for president has never won in U.S. history.  Choosing “the lesser of two evils” is just the nature of life, like it or not.  Work at that job that you hate because the alternative is homelessness and malnutrition.  That is reality.  (I’m no fun at parties.)

  93. 93.

    Old Man Shadow

    If the State claims ownership of your body, you have NO rights. You only have privileges it can take away at its discretion.

  94. 94.

    Spanky

    @suzanne: I’m not sure that it wasn’t always so, not just in recent years. Isn’t all social status relative? I mean, isn’t “status” always measured against something or someone?

  95. 95.

    Barbara

    @Scout211: You mean, they lied to him?  I know judges are hesitant to put that kind of conclusion in writing if they haven’t had the chance to grill the person making the assertion, but it seems pretty obvious that they were lying.  As if the people who tend Arlington Cemetery would allow the desecration of grave sites for those who served.

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Trivia: Episode of the precursor to The Ed Sullivan Show, Toast of the Town, in the late 1940s showcased a very young Sammy Davis Jr. Video went kaput during the live broadcast so those scattered viewers who had TVs were treated to the audio only of his tap dancing.

  97. 97.

    PatrickG

    @Jeffg166: and don’t get me started on that Jesus guy! Died for our sins? What kind of lesson does that send!? My generation was raised to believe in personal responsibility! Do the crime, do the time!

    /s

  98. 98.

    Suzanne

    @Spanky: No, there’s measures of earning power, poverty, productivity, GDP, life expectancy, etc. that would indicate a true change in social status. But that’s not the shit that the GOP is fighting about. All the culture war shit is essentially based in trying to make some people (white, straight dudes, Americans, Christians) feel superior to others and to have more power over others.

  99. 99.

    Quinerly

    @Yarrow: love the place. Thrilled that Allen and Tina have brought back the previously crumbling  Castenada on the tracks in Las Vegas, New Mexico. They are now living there but will be in Winslow for Christmas, I think. The Turquoise Room puts on a great Christmas Eve and Day spread. Have you been since they reworked and remodeled the bar area? Pretty snazzy.

    They have also bought Lamy’s historic Legal Tender Restaurant and Saloon out near me in Santa Fe County. It’s struggling, but I am hoping with George R.R. Martin’s investment with the train depot and his “dragon train” things will take off.

    I love Tina’s art and their meeting story….Russia….a peace march. Good people. They are truly making a difference with their investments in Little Vegas.

  100. 100.

    eversor

    Well, we have Christianity and thus men should make the call.  End of fucking story.  Per Jesus.  So, there are no reproductive rights.

  101. 101.

    Tony G

    @Alison Rose: Yup.  I would amend that by saying the right-wingers are fucking JOYLESS babies from dysfunctional families.  Based on my training (Psychology 101 in 1974), it’s my observation that many (most? all?) right-wing people are fundamentally  unhappy people, who feel a little bit of joy only if they see one of the people that they hate suffer.  Calvinism mixed with Ayn Rand.

  103. 103.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    e Washington Post, explains why “Right-wing pundits tremble in fear of … tap-dancing”

    I was thinking, I suppose in normal politics I would be a moderate conservative but bullshit like this just beyond the pale. Since the fucking ’80s it’s been one stupid thing after another the Right has been losing their shit over whether it’s “OMG, the kids are smoking pot rather than drinking themselves to death” or “Dungeon and Dragons is the gateway to baby sacrifice” and now we are at “Blonde hair blue eye pop singer doesn’t approve of us!” and now fucking Tap dancing is the end of Western Civilization.

    I think  it really broils down to as a man I could never belong to a sub culture were the likes of  a chinless wonder who clearly never went threw puberty like Ben Shapiro gets to defines masculinity. And the conservatives complain the women and more balls than then men these day, well how about they take a look at the “men” they are holding up as the example.

  104. 104.

    Bobby Thomson

    To say they lost their dung over the dance video is an understatement.  For some reason it was a deliberate insult to Christians everywhere, I guess because [checks notes] some of the dancers gave a whiff of teh ghey?  Who’s going to tell them?

  105. 105.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I think in normal politics I would be something more on the edge between social democracy and democratic socialism. I actually feel the pull of that. It still makes me wince a little at the “proud to be a Democrat” tag.

    But it’s all hands on deck. US-style liberalism, especially in its current form which is actually considerably to the left of the version I grew up with, is way better than the alternatives actually on offer. And the leftists who keep standing outside the tent pissing in just seem to be willfully ignoring the danger.

  107. 107.

    Yarrow

    @kindness:  This sort of crap is why I think there should be a concerted effort to teach people about how government works. We’ve gutted civics classes in schools and things like Schoolhouse Rock are ancient relics. There has to be a modern way to bring that info to the masses. TikTok maybe?

    Dems could put some money towards it. Talk about the importance of voting all the way down the ballot. Get some really good musicians to put together some catchy tunes a la Schoolhouse Rock. Emphasize the Three Branches of Government and how The President Isn’t a King. (Song title ideas). Etc.

    I’m not good at that sort of thing so maybe I’m way off base but it sure looks to me that there’s a massive need for it. People just get mad and blame Biden for everything from the potholes on their street not being fixed to Netanyahu’s bombing Gaza to Space Force logos. It’s pathetic but also damaging to democracy and the country.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @Barbara: In 1954, when Betty White featured tap dancer Arthur Duncan on her new network TV show, southern stations threatened to boycott it because he was a Black man. White told network executives, “I’m sorry, but you know, he stays. Live with it.”

    It was a popular show, but NBC kept switching the time slot and then quietly canceled it at the end of the year.

    Duncan went on to dance overseas with the USO, and then in 1964 he became a regular on the Lawrence Welk show. Duncan was still performing in his 80s, and passed away in January of this year at the age of 97.

  112. 112.

    dm

    @Tony G: I suppose the one good thing to say about the Electoral College is that it gives dissatisfied voters in safe states to vote for the candidate they like instead of Lesser or Evil.

    I live in Massachusetts. If my one vote for the Screaming Me Me party is the thing that tips Massachusetts’ electoral votes into the red, the election was already decided.

    Even so, it’s not enough to redeem the Electoral College.

  115. 115.

    Quinerly

    @Yarrow: bar area was redone and expanded during Covid Times. Original chef has retired. I love the new guy (came up thru the kitchen ranks) just as well.

    Take care. Have wonderful holiday.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    @dm: I’m not sure that’s actually a good thing–it encourages fantasy-driven politics, and because of modern Internet media this stuff never stays confined to the deep blue states.

    If we had an electoral system and governmental structure designed to actually make minor parties a viable part of the political system, that would be another story.

  120. 120.

    Jeffro

    @Alison Rose: that’s AWEsome!

    @Quinerly: that is a thought I have frequently when it comes to the always-outraged set.  Unfortunately I think three decades of Fox has built up a tolerance in most of them…

    …but let’s keep hoping!  =)

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    Nonilex
    @[email protected]

    The man picked to lead the #WashingtonPost stands accused of helping to lead a massive cover-up of #criminal activity.

    In lawsuits against #Murdoch’s #NewsCorp, lawyers for #PrinceHarry & #HughGrant depict Lewis as a leader of a frenzied #conspiracy to kneecap public ofcls hostile to a multibillion-dollar #business deal & to delete millions of potentially damning emails. They also allege Lewis sought to shield the CEO of British News Corp’s #NewsUK from scrutiny & conceal wrongdoing at #TheSun.

    Dec 20, 2023, 11:35

    https://www.npr.org/2023/12/20/1219570870/

    Hmm….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    @Quinerly: Heck, I recall myriad declaration that “now that he’s won, Donald Trump will pivot to the moderate center because he no longer needs his campaign rhetoric. This will be borne out through his administration selections.”

  124. 124.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Quinerly: I love reading about your trips. For those who do these several week trips, what do you do about leaving your permanent abode vacant for a length of time? I’ve been thinking about planning one of these longer trips….

  126. 126.

    sab

    @NotMax: My husband LOVED that video. He deeply regrets not learning to tap in his youth ( as do I) and he loves terriers ( I don’t.)  I have an American Staffie in my bed right now, but I detest terriers, even her.  She is currently barking for no reason

    I love her, but she loves me more, which is why I even put up with the barky girl. Bark bark. Then bark some more. She even has a low key muffled bark, for when she isn’t supposed to bark but she needs to bark, which she always does need to do.

  127. 127.

    Alison Rose

    Yikes, please be safe, SoCal jackals :(

    A storm system along the California coast will drive excessive rain, thunderstorms and even the possibility of waterspouts or tornadoes through Friday, with the worst conditions expected in Southern California from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday.

    The storm’s center is forecast to take the “optimal route” to produce maximum rainfall, meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Los Angeles wrote early Wednesday morning.

    Also, forgive me, I’m apparently 13 years old, but:

    This storm is likely to be an exclamation point on what has already been an incredibly wet year for California

    Heh.

  129. 129.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    “It’s diverse as hell. They had to do that. It had to be a DEI video,” said Newsmax host Rob Schmitt.

    Diverse as hell…just like Rob’s porn search history?

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) posted at 8:14 AM on Wed, Dec 20, 2023:
    BREAKING: Donald Trump’s week from hell gets exponentially worse as a judge rules that Special Counsel Jack Smith CAN access a staggering 1,600 communications found on MAGA Congressman Scott Perry’s cell phone.

    This historic ruling is the result of lengthy, partially secretive… https://t.co/wDoEen7L88
    (https://x.com/OccupyDemocrats/status/1737476648616722863?t=A6MMcHESQowbaUqv9WswMw&s=03)

  136. 136.

    Quinerly

    @Sure Lurkalot: in St. Louis, I had tons of neighbors that checked in on it. Also, since it was an 1880’s Victorian that I was constantly doing projects on, I essentially had 2 “artists in residence.” Think “Eldin” in Murphy Brown. Now that I am in NM, I have various friends who stay here…you would be surprised how many people love the offer of a free place to stay in Santa Fe with the owner not around. My peeps are too old for “Gypsies in the Palace” stuff. (Obscure song reference. Name the artist without Googling….win fabulous prizes.😎)

  137. 137.

    sab

    @rikyrah: As usual, I misunderstand. Isn’t Occupy supposed to be pure people stuff and not party? So why are those nitwits (aka fleabrains) attacking Democrats?

  139. 139.

    trollhattan

    @Alison Rose: Whee!

    We had a thunderstorm park over the house last evening that gave quite a light show while dumping half an inch in a scant few minutes–flooding the street (fookin’ sycamore leaves!) and floating the garbage cans here and there. Weirdly warm for December, too.

  140. 140.

    Quinerly

    @trollhattan:

    I posted somewhere that I thought he would resign in 6 months from being originally sworn in. Too much work for him. I was terrified of a Pres Pence. Pass me that steaming bowl of crow.

  141. 141.

    rikyrah

    There are all kinds of strange things on TikTok. How they get on my feed, I dunno.

    1. North Sea Tiktok – I don’t understand anyone who takes a job that sends them to the North Sea. It’s too phucking dangerous.
    2. Neil-the-Seal TikTok: the seal that has made Tazmania its home while it sheds. Neil is hilarious.
    3.  Kitchen River TikTok. These folks literally have rivers in their kitchens. Fascinating to watch.
    4.  Basement Eel TikTok: There is a  man with a subbasement full of eels. The creepiness of it…I feel that Law Enforcement should be looking into him.
  142. 142.

    frosty

    @Quinerly: Sounds like a great trip! All of ours have been east-west … well, except Snowbirding in FL and escaping the summer heat in Canada or New England.

    I have to get moving on planning a trip through the Canadian Rockies and the Washington National Parks. Hope it’s not too late to get camping reservations.

  144. 144.

    Jim Appleton

    @Quinerly: I recently visited my brother in Bisbee, highly recommended and from what I know of you I think you’d like it.

    Avoid Friday and Saturday due to tourist overload.

    Sunday a.m. live music at Kafka brought me to tears and is all locals, a diverse and fascinating bunch.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    The ENTIRE PHUCK!

     

    Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) posted at 10:14 AM on Tue, Dec 19, 2023:
    Police in St. Louis crashed into an LGBTQ+ bar and then arrested the bar owner for being pissed about it. The judge ordered that he be held without bond. Video from a bystander contradicts the police’s version of events.
    https://t.co/a2jb5eRt5Z https://t.co/3iM2B8RH0c
    (https://x.com/davenewworld_2/status/1737144501246865806?t=RSD7SvBk6yaP15P6_cnCYQ&s=03)

  146. 146.

    narya

    @rikyrah: This makes no sense to me. I listen to PSA a lot, and they do not appear to “hate Joe Biden.” I think they’ve had Ron Klein on the show, too. It’s interesting hearing their takes on, e.g., Biden’s commercials–they’ve been generally positive, for what that’s worth–because they’ve done comms for a President. They have specialized experience, in that sense, so I’m interested in what they have to say, but “hate” is not what comes through.

    @Quinerly: Thanks for the reminder about Eldin! I watched that show faithfully and had forgotten that character.

  147. 147.

    Anoniminous

    The screenplay for The Great Escape was written by James Clavell who was a prisoner of war in World War II, first in Java and then in the Changi Prison in Singapore.  He later said if it wasn’t for the atomic bomb he’d probably have died of starvation.

  150. 150.

    sab

    Shadow, our cat, is looking ragged. Bad scruffy fur. She just looks unkempt.  Husband disagrees as does our vet. I am so sick of men saying it is all psychological. She is just unhappy ( for some unknown reason, like, maybe her actual health sucks.)

  152. 152.

    Kay

    @Scout211:

    The Dobbs decision greenlit a patchwork of abortion bans that are inherently standardless and functionally unworkable, forcing judges with no medical background into the business of making medical judgments. The boundaries between fatal and nonfatal, therapeutic and elective, and even abortion and miscarriage are blurry for medical professionals; they are virtually impossible to decipher for the lawyers and judges who have to navigate them.

    Yup. I think pro choice people are stil getting their heads around the idea that where anti abortion hits a wall is health/life of the mother. They cannot draft laws to anticipate every medical issue and circumstance for millions and millions of women every year. Someone here suggested they go the other way – “abortion is legal EXCEPT” and then a list – but religious extremists would never accept that.

    This is exactly what happened in Mexico and Ireland, btw. Anti abortion laws fell in those countries not because people “demanded” (Justice Scalia’s outraged term) elective abortions- they fell because abortion laws were killing women who had medical issues in pregnancy and delivery.

    My concern is we won’t get the real information we need to track women dying from these laws because states with limited rights for women will fold the deaths into general deaths in childbirth stats. Texas already loses a lot of women in pregnancy, delivery and the year after delivery- they already have a high maternal mortality as compared to progressive, modern states with access to healthcare. It will be hard to determine which is just general red state poor health and health care and which is anti abortion laws.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … KyivIndependent.com:

    Ukraine has already produced 50,000 first-person-view (FPV) drones in December, Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin said on Dec. 20.

    FPV drones are cheap to manufacture and can be precisely flown into targets. They have the capability of destroying much more expensive military equipment.

    Kamyshin said in October that Ukraine aimed to massively scale up its production of drones to tens of thousands per month.

    He added on Dec. 10 that Ukraine has the capability to produce 10,000 mid-range drones and 1,000 long-range drones, which can fly more than 1,000 kilometers, in 2024.

    […]

    Good, good.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    sab

    @Kay: Yes. The only way we will know is if individual women sacrifice all their privacy rights to let us know. I am appalled but hopeful. A lot of women are actually brave.

  156. 156.

    trollhattan

    @Quinerly: I wasn’t quite that hopeful, but gave 1:10 odds he’d survive the full term.

    I am smrt.

    President Pence of course would have been a shitshow, but more like having a quart of Jesus-flavor yoghurt in the office instead of the rabid wolverine.

  157. 157.

    Kay

    Arkansas
    Mississippi
    Tennessee
    Alabama
    Louisiana
    Georgia
    South Carolina
    Arizona
    Indiana

    That’s top ten for maternal mortality in the US. All but one is a red state. California and Mass. are the best states for maternal health. So since so many women already die in the “backward states” (as far as modern health care for women) I don’t know that we’ll be able to track an increase. Is anyone going to notice if Indiana goes from 10th highest maternal mortality to 8th highest? No.

  159. 159.

    Hoodie

    @narya:  My impression is that they like Joe Biden but wish someone younger was running in 2024.  There are several candidates on the Dem bench that could defeat Trump, including several popular governors.  This is a bit different than the situation in 2020.

  161. 161.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Did you know that Idaho has decided not to record Maternal Mortality stats anymore?

    If they don’t record them, then you can relate the increase to the abortion ban.

  163. 163.

    montanareddog

    @rikyrah:

    North Sea Tiktok – I don’t understand anyone who takes a job that sends them to the North Sea. It’s too phucking dangerous.

    Reminds me of a neighbour many moons ago. He was an officer on ocean-going freighters and would have 3 month tours followed by 1 month breaks; a single guy with a lot of accumulated pay, he would take practical courses during his breaks, his private pilot’s licence and the like. He told me that, one time. he took a commercial diving course, came out first of his cohort, and was immediately offered a mega salary to work as a diver for North Sea rigs. Then he saw the life expectancy stats. Honestly, the median survival at the time was like 6 months or something.

  167. 167.

    Kay

    If you watch Nikki Haley with the sound off she looks like she’s yelling at you that she’s going to take things away from you. She’s probably had media and speech training – did they not notice that she looks like she wants to punish us?

  168. 168.

    CaseyL

    @sab: Yikes, that is bad and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

    Has your vet checked the usual things? UTI, thyroid, kidneys?

    Cats DO get depression, just like humans.  Also, some drugs have a strong depressive side effect (my cat, Oscar, gets very depressed from his thyroid medication).

    Also – is your cat old?  Older cats tend to get a scruffy look, and a sunken look along their hindquarters.  The scruffy is mostly because they can’t groom themselves as well as when they were younger.  The sunken is because, like everyone else who gets old, their tendons and muscles weaken.

    If your vet continues to poo-pooh your concerns, take your cat to a different vet if you can.

  169. 169.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Oh,that’s sad. I feel like the health care industry and medical professionals could help us with this – they’re supposed to be fact based. Don’t they need to know how many women are dying in childbirth, ya know, so we “do better”? Maybe they don’t care. Wouldn’t fucking suprise me a bit in this sexist country.

    It’s such a lie that the US loves mothers and babies. We treat mothers and babies like shit compared to other countries.

  170. 170.

    dm

    @Hoodie: I don’t even think they “wish someone younger were running” as much as “wish the age issue wasn’t being applied equitably”.

  172. 172.

    Quinerly

    @Jim Appleton: I early retired from my practice at the end of 2019. Had set myself up to travel more. I was in NM on the Rez in March, 2020 when Covid really started to hit. Grabbed my JoJo puppy I had adopted in Espanola, NM and hightailed it back to St. Louis. Three weeks into the “shut down” I started planning my escape. A 4 month trip in an AWD Toyota mini van….camping thru Southern CO, 2 months renting in Santa Fe, and a month in AZ that included Bisbee, Tubac…Basically everything below Sedona. I tend to deeply research my trips…history of areas, obscure facts, etc. I was very “into” Bisbee and that area…off season. Got vaccinated like we all did 3/2021….made my escape Sept 2021….did the CO camping and NM rental portion (where I had stayed on previous Feb trips). It sounds crazy now, but I found my dream house a few weeks into my rental stay. Never thought I would get it but became the dog who caught the car. Long story short, had to skip the Southern AZ portion to get back to St. Louis to get my house on the the hot market.

    Now that I am settled in here, these SW trips can be done in smaller bites. Using all my Bisbee, etc research at the end of Jan and into Feb. I’m stoked.

  173. 173.

    frosty

    @Sure Lurkalot: Up til now one of our sons has been living in the house while we were gone. Anticipating a change, we’ve installed Blink cameras and a doorbell that sends a notice and video to your phone. We’ll see how it goes this year!

  174. 174.

    Yarrow

    @Quinerly:  Sounds great. Maybe I’ll get out there again sometime.

    Have wonderful holiday.

    Thanks. Not going to happen. I’ll be spending it alone. Probably work. Holidays fucking suck. I hope yours is nice, though.

  175. 175.

    Anoniminous

    @Another Scott:

    Excellent news.  Drones are changing the nature as well as the technology of war.  Once they start making air-to-air armed drones capable of Mach 1 that’s it for the Russian – and US – Air Force.

  176. 176.

    Quinerly

    @Yarrow: sorry that you are alone. Holidays can be tough. I wander around by myself with a dog…like I said looking at things and talking to strangers. Being an only child…I kinda feel like I have been alone my entire life. And that’s perfectly fine. Not sure I would know now how to have it any other way.

  177. 177.

    Quinerly

    @frosty: love those cameras and doorbells. And my excellent alarm system.

    I’m getting stoked for my March Death Valley adventure. I chuckled…this one weird place that I’m staying at a couple of nights is at some hot springs. Owner messaged me that I needed to have my own water. BYOW. Theirs wasn’t drinkable. Then I looked at their site again. They have a microbrewery on site. I now reallt have to check out this place. What doesn’t kill me will make me stronger 💜

  178. 178.

    Tony G

    @OzarkHillbilly: The right has a vision that the 1950’s in general are the last time that this country was a good place.  (The fifties are the “Again” in “Make America Great Again”.). The irony is that nobody younger than 82 has an adult memory of the fifties.  For most people they’re a mythical time, known only from TV shows and movies.

  179. 179.

    Chris

    @montanareddog:

    @Another Scott: My memory of The Great Escape is vague, too, but I do recall one of the escapees (in civvies) having his papers checked and saying “you’re welcome” or something when the policeman thanks him in English. I think that is the scene to which Chris is referring.

    Correct!

    For extra irony, the man who was tripped up by automatically responding in English was the same man who’d tripped up one of his fellow prisoners earlier in the exact same way while they were rehearsing his lines as an escapee.

    @CliosFanBoy:

    Don’t recall that happening.  I’ve watched it several times, but not for a while now, so it could still be.

  180. 180.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: I listen to them all the time, and I certainly don’t get the vibe that they dislike Joe Biden. I wonder why this person thinks that.

  182. 182.

    Chris

    @Tony G:

    @OzarkHillbilly: The right has a vision that the 1950’s in general are the last time that this country was a good place.  (The fifties are the “Again” in “Make America Great Again”.). The irony is that nobody younger than 82 has an adult memory of the fifties.  For most people they’re a mythical time, known only from TV shows and movies.

    That’s almost certainly part of the point.

    In fact, even the original wave of fifties nostalgia was largely due to the rose-tinted glasses of people remembering their childhood and just projecting conservative values and policies (half of which were very much not in effect at the time) onto that feeling of warmth and certainty.

    Certainly adult conservatives in the actual fifties didn’t feel that they were living through any kind of golden age.  Most of them in turn seem to have been nostalgic for a nineteenth century that was, also, entirely fictional and almost completely forgotten.  (And nowadays the fifties have increasingly been replaced by the eighties in the nostalgia market.  The cycle keeps going).

  184. 184.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: They love their romanticized idea of mothers and babies. The real thing, though, they’re not too enthusiastic about.

  187. 187.

    sab

    @Hoodie: I wish Joe Biden was Joe Biden age 60 but we cannot have everything so I am happy with Joe Biden as is, with Kamala Harris VP also as is. If he was 60 she would be too inexperienced to be VP.

  189. 189.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: I always think about how Disneyland put “Main Street, USA” up front where it was always about 1910. That was Walt Disney’s happy place, the world just before the world wars.

  193. 193.

    Tony G

    @Chris: Eighties nostalgia?  Wow; I’m as out of step with the current nostalgia trends as I am with the rest of popular culture.  I was fairly young (mid-twenties to mid-thirties) in the eighties, but, to me, it was a pretty hellish decade.  Reagan, crack, AIDs, etc.  But I guess the nostalgia industry can sell anything!

  194. 194.

    kalakal

    @frosty:

    David McCallum. Responds with “Thank you” or something in English. Drops everything and runs, gets shot and killed.

    Gordon Jackson. The Nazi checks his papers at the railway station, hands them back and then says “Good luck” in English. Poor old Gordon instinctively says “Thanks” . Then runs, gets shot, and dies.

    That film was on every bank holiday in England* when I was a kid, I could probably write the screenplay.

    * Also Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, The Guns of Navarone, and Carry on Cleo

  195. 195.

    Jim Appleton

    @Quinerly: Again, Kafka Sunday a.m. is the best way to meet the locals.

    And dogs are welcome

    Ask someone to introduce my brother Tom and his wife Doris.

  196. 196.

    steverinoCT

    @montanareddog: …having his papers checked and saying “you’re welcome” or something when the policeman thanks him in English.

    Reminds me of a Benny Hill sketch: he and Jackie ? are German spies in a British pub. The waitress comes up and asks if he’d like another, and he absently replies, “Nein. !!! I mean, yes, nine more!”

  198. 198.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tony G: I’m pretty sure part of the attraction of Donald Trump is Eighties nostalgia, since that was when he emerged as a symbol of unfettered wealth.

    I have a certain amount of nostalgia for late 70s-early 80s computers and video games and if you follow online groups about that stuff, there are absolutely people who completely wallow in nostalgia for the world of the Eighties. Usually because, as these things usually go, they were kids then and adults took care of the scary stuff.

  199. 199.

    Miss Bianca

    @Matt McIrvin: I’ve never been able to understand nostalgia that stems from “I was a kid then so everything was great.” Mostly, I imagine, because I found childhood to be a highly unsatisfactory state and couldn’t wait to be grown up!

  200. 200.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Miss Bianca: I remember finding it strange and a bit frustrating that I was in this stage of life where nobody would take me entirely seriously.

    Though the upside of that was that the standards for what level of achievement it took to impress adults were fairly low, because you got extra credit for precocity.

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