Two dudes chillin in an eggnog hot tub…
— Laurasaurus (@laurasaurus.bsky.social) December 7, 2024 at 4:53 PM
There's genuinely so much beauty in the American project, even amidst the horrors. There's nothing wrong with this country that can't be fixed by what's right with it.
— Leonid Baezhnev (@rev-avocado.bsky.social) December 25, 2024 at 9:54 PM
— Pete Woods- use only as directed (@thatpetewoods.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 10:39 PM
Some people never got past how they felt in like 2011, so they’re teaming up with those who objected to every inch of progress we’ve had since the civil war.
— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) December 25, 2024 at 11:19 PM
My credo for the upcoming year:
The most cringe resist lib who built shrines to Mueller and thought “Drumpf” was cooking with fire had a better batting record than every single savvy politics knower. Despite -or perhaps because this- the media has no interest in attending a wine mom brunch instead of another blue collar diner.
— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 2:54 PM
A lot of lefty folks think a bunch of politically active negatively polarized women who voted against Trump three times are fascists eager to join the Trumpenreich SS but manly men who voted Republican every election since 1996 are one Rogan interview away from socialism. I don’t think that’s true.
— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 11:04 PM
Tbh, your goofy aunt is the most valuable type of protester under an aspiring authoritarian. (ie: the kind the Army would say “no thank you” to shooting.)
— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 11:08 PM
We’re a big country and our civil society is still stronger than most places that have fallen apart. We can beat these guys. There are more of us than there are of them. Again, it’s a big country. A lot harder to steal it all.
(H/t to @skatingtomato.bsky.social for resurfacing)— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 11:07 PM
On The Road – SkyBluePink – Winter Lights through the years
Baud
We can beat them, but there aren’t more of us. We need allies who aren’t us.
Suzanne
Hey, I resemble this remark. (Not really a wine mom, but most of my social circle is.)
I will note that there doesn’t seem to be any widespread political movement concerned about our dignity, the way blue-collar men have.
Soprano2
@Baud: I think whether there are more of “us” depends on the issue. For preserving SS and Medicare, there are definitely more of us than there are of people like Elon.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Define us.
schrodingers_cat
News Update from India about my father: Some blockages discovered. One stent put in. Dad doing better than he was yesterday.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: People we don’t hate.
Baud
@Suzanne: In fairness, blue collar (Trump voting) men have defined their entire identity in terms of their dignity and slights thereto.
MazeDancer
Elon is an easier target than Trump.
Starting with actual Dems who think he’s a “genius”. That he invented Tesla, not bought it, That he is some brilliant scientist.
schrodingers_cat
@MazeDancer: He is a pudgy idiot with lots of money.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Political identity isn’t formed around issues or policy preferences, though. We here would like it to be, but it isn’t. (This gets back, kinda, to what I’ve been saying about the Democratic Party having a weak brand identity.) It’s formed more around social position and status.
There’s a ton of people who love their Social Security and Medicare and just voted for the other guy. It’s not a differentiator at this point in time.
NotMax
Holiday tater tuneage.
;)
Baud
@Suzanne:
Also too, abortion. Referendum results vs. political party results.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Good, I’m glad to hear they were able to help him. Sometimes I think about the fact that if my father were diagnosed today, rather than in 1978, he would have had a heart bypass surgery and probably lived long past 48.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Great.
Soprano2
@Baud: You mean they’re *gasp* practicing identity politics? I have been assured it’s only liberals who do that. LOL
Suzanne
@Baud:
Yeah, no kidding. It’s something I absolutely observe to be true, and yet it really just blows my mind.
Baud
@Soprano2: The default is never considered an identity.
Soprano2
@MazeDancer: It shocks me how many people think Elon is some engineering genius, rather than a spoiled rich guy who buys companies. He’s fooled a lot of people.
Soprano2
I know, I guess it depends on how you define the issue and “side”. A lot of these people would be on our “side” when it comes to how to handle SS, Medicare and Medicaid.
AM in NC
Yep, I and my pink-pussy-hat-wearing friends will keep fighting on. Volunteering, organizing, marching, having conversations with people who aren’t us. We will do what women always do: put our heads down and do the damn work. There is no other choice for us.
Lapassionara
@MazeDancer: This! Lots of people, including some who would normally be our Allies, think he is an engineering genius. Job one is to get that notion out of their heads.
Suzanne
@Baud: I actually — at least, in my calmer moments — take some solace in that. The political left has won at least the public debate over Social Security and Medicare, they’re now broadly popular. On that, we were successful….. even though it eats me up that we aren’t going to get the credit.
I feel the same way about “anti-war” people voting for Orange. Like, I remember more than 20 minutes ago, when the GOP loved them some wars.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I’ve always thought it was interesting that socially it’s absolutely OK to look down on people who live in cities, but not people who live in rural areas, as well as insulting people who are educated, and yet it’s people in rural areas who are absolutely highly offended if they think anyone is “dissing” them in any way. Why can they look down on me but I can’t look down on them? It’s ridiculous.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Obama really understood women’s dignity, in a way I have never seen in any other male politician. I so, so appreciated it. His annoyance with media questions around the birth control fight in the ACA – their obtuseness and rigidity – made me giddy with relief that someone “got it”.
Soprano2
@Baud: Oh, but it absolutely is whether they consider it that way or not.
Suzanne
@AM in NC: Ever notice how the things women do in political life get called “cringe” or “basic”? Like protesting for your rights is the same as enjoying a pumpkin spice latte. It’s an intellectual diminishment that drives me crazy.
JKC
@Baud: And just in time in this morning’s WaPo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/12/26/trump-voters-federal-benefits-food/
I’m not proud of feeling this way, but I’m looking forward to these people getting slapped in the face by reality.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I don’t think they’re “anti-war”, I think they’re anti any war they think the U.S. doesn’t get some direct benefit from. If TCFG wants to attack Mexico, watch them all jump on the “attack Mexico” train. Look how they’re reacting to his idiotic stuff about Panama.
Suzanne
@Kay: Agree 100% about Obama.
Reading Michelle’s book, in which she writes about their fertility struggles and use of IVF, brought home for me that he really grokked it.
p.a.
The real tell: if the Democrats adopted a policy of 2nd Amendment absolutism AND a policy to buy everyone who wanted one one gun per calendar year (up to & including semi-auto), they still wouldn’t win the white male vote.
TBone
I just wrote a long letter email to my former dyed in the wool hippie, goofy Aunt who liked the pink(ish) flower arrangement I sent and from which I recoiled in horror because the florist’s photos were, uh, really bad. My aunt knows her horticulture and some of those flowers were special (Lenten rose, plus some kind of star flowers, not pink carnations!). I am the newest member of the goofy aunt club in my family and need more practice (hahaha no I don’t, I was born quirky).
This story lit a fire under my ass today. Ya can’t make this shit up!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/no-room-at-the-inn
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Good news.
dmsilev
@Soprano2: I absolutely fucking hate the word ‘heartland’ because of this.
zhena gogolia
@Lapassionara: Too bad more women couldn’t have voted for Harris.
H.E.Wolf
@schrodingers_cat: Glad to hear that news. I hope there’ll be more good news still to come.
Doug R
@Baud: 49.8% of eligible voters who bothered to show up aren’t “more”. We have 7,000,000 squishes that we need to inform and help activate.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: No, they’re not genuinely anti-war. They’re idiotic. They aren’t principled.
I have written here about how seeing people around me get their bloodthirst on for invading Iraq was really the formative event of my early political life. It is still a thing that makes me angry, and that was a generation ago now.
dmsilev
@JKC: Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party, part infinity.
(Apparently my iPad’s autocomplete has been trained enough that typing Leopards Eating automatically suggests the next two words.)
Kay
@Suzanne:
It was like this unexplored facet of women’s lives that even women have difficulty expressing. My daughter describes the invasion of privacy as “why are they always TALKING ABOUT US” – she means the panels of Right wing and media men “debating” birth control, pregnancy, womens roles at work and in marriage. Obama got up there and just SAID this is undignified and demeaning.
Its so rare to feel really well -represented. That was one time where I did.
Soprano2
@JKC: Oh good grief, it’s as if none of these people heard anything TCFG said except “I’m going to get rid of all the scary brown immigrants”, and they obviously didn’t believe Democrats about Project 2025 at all. Some quotes from this insane article:
These people are uninformed, and voted foolishly. I wonder, who will they blame if Musk persuades Congress to cut their benefits? Isn’t it funny how they think the poor (white) residents of New Castle deserve to be “taken care of” by the government? I’m with the WaPo commenter who thinks they should check back in with these people in a year to see if they believe their lives have improved any. Have prices in the grocery store gone down since January 21, 2025? Did your benefits go up? Is your rent cheaper? If they were really reporters, they would go back and find out these things.
TBone
@NotMax: music with which to dine on Potatoes Anna (the closest I can come to homemade latkes in my world)! I’m not up to making mandelbrot today but it’s coming soon I hope.
Happy Hanukkah everybody
Kay
@Soprano2:
Elon Musk and Republicans just cut 20 billion from IRS collection and enforcement. They’re cutting revenue. Low income Americans are going to have to grow up – a budget consists of expenditures AND revenue. He’s going to cut their benefits and they’re going to start paying a new federal tax – tariffs – on nearly everything they buy. This decision was disastrous for them. Lower benefits, higher (regressive) taxes. They’re screwed.
Oh well. They were warned.
TBone
I refuse to use that “h” word right now. Righteous anger? Yes! Burning frustration? You bet! But no one can force me to hate this time around, at least not yet.
Suzanne
@Kay:
Because they want our uncompensated labor! They miss it!
Adam Smith — Mr. Invisible Hand himself! — lived with his mom. All this deep thought about the wealth of nations, but no observance of the economics of his own house.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think most people don’t know what Paul Krugman has told us, that the American government is an insurance company with an army. Those are the places you’d have to cut if you didn’t want to raise revenue, and obviously Republicans don’t want to raise any more revenue.
TBone
@Suzanne: that’s like Ayn Rand’s being on the dole hahaha! Good eye!
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Also, they’re tired of having to compete with us for jobs and spots in college, because they found out we’re sometimes smarter and more hard-working than they are.
Soprano2
@Kay: Also, states like mine keep trying to cut income taxes and piling on more and more fees and sales taxes. That hurts poor people’s pocketbooks, yet they keep voting for Republicans, at least in this state.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Did you see Trump says he’ll ban women’s boxing? All that bullshit about how the trans smearing was about women’s sports – I guarantee they go after Title IX.
Anti woke pundits are the dumbest fuckers on the planet. They fall for anything.
Soprano2
I think the main reason R’s want to get rid of the Education Department is because it enforces Title IX. They think no more Education Department, no more enforcement of Title IX. Does TCFG think he can ban women’s boxing with an executive order? What a dumbass.
Nukular Biskits
Good (gray) mornin’, y’all!
Soprano2
@Nukular Biskits: It’s gray here, too. I’m tired of it, that’s one reason I don’t like winter.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: my IRL middle name. I keep the Christmas lights on on every gray day throughout. It’s my kinda likea menorah.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Happy Hannukah! And to all.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Absolutely. Ohio is jam packed with quietly regressive state taxes now. A tariff is just a tax on poor and middle class people – a federal consumption tax they weren’t paying before. He’s doing that so he can cut Elon Musks taxes.
But as I have said here before, my grandmother had a 6th grade education, a single mother who didn’t speak English and a fullbtime job in Scranton PA at age 14- somehow she managed to collect some accurate information about politics and vote her economic interests. I grant poor people agency. There is no reason they can’t make informed decisions.
Bupalos
@Lapassionara: The way to begin to disarm post-truth populists is not to bang your head against the wall insisting they are stupid. They aren’t. They have an eye for identifying systemically fucked up situations and a kind of amorality that allows them to exploit that situation for their own gain. They get stronger when you waste time and credibility defending or downplaying the fucked up situation, which is the trap we’ve been lured into.
The first move you have to make is a counterintuitive one- you have to affirm and describe the problems in the existing situation. You have to gain credibility as a critic and opponent of that situation. Which is something that is systemically very difficult for Dems to do right now.
Kay
@Soprano2:
The Ohio anti trans law acts to bar more than 300 cis girls who were playing “boys sports” because their rural public schools didn’t field girls teams. It harms cis girls much, much more than trans girls.
They want women out of sports completely.
Nukular Biskits
Love that “return” cartoon!
Parfigliano
@Kay: Fuck em. Done worrying about idiots.
RevRick
@Baud: You’re right. We cannot delude ourselves into believing we are the majority. If every single eligible voter voted, the outcome would still be in the narrow range of close win and close loss. It’s just family systems theory writ large on a national scale, where the system will maintain homeostasis at all costs. Progress and reaction are forever in a tug-of-war for ascendancy.
Kay
@Bupalos:
With all due respect, that has not been true in my 25 years of actual ftf canvassing and persuasion in rural Ohio. Democrats have tried every single variant of this messaging. We’re actually on Round Two of what you’re suggesting – Howard Dean made that exact argument 20 years ago. He rode around in a pickup truck with a gun rack cosplaying low-income rural people. There’s an entire faction of the Democratic Party who believe in this approach, despite it failing for twenty years.
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
I was extremely disappointed. I was expecting a video showing someone using taters as musical instruments.
Kinda like Patrick Star’s mayonnaise.
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: Wishing a smooth recovery for him.
TBone
@TBone: regerts I hope not to have in the New Years to come (read the 5 minute story and your resolve shall harden also):
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s why I said they voted foolishly. They heard the part of the message they liked and ignored the rest, just like a lot of the people who voted for TCFG. That’s consistent, every time I’ve heard his supporters interviewed about “aren’t you worried he’ll do ‘x'” they’ll say “no, he isn’t really going to do that” or “he only says that to upset you, he’s not really serious about it”. They are in denial because they wanted to vote for him because they think he’ll take them back to 2019, at least metaphorically. (I know they don’t believe in time travel.)
Kay
@Parfigliano:
I’m sorry they have to DO SOMETHING to protect themselves, but they do. It is the height of arrogant patronizing to say they can’t.
If you’re in Section 8 housing – and there is Section 8 housing ALL OVER rural areas, you had better goddamned figure out which political party got you the voucher. Or lose it.
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
This person is a shameless liar or an outright idiot. Or both.
prostratedragon
@Soprano2: There’s a crazy rumor going round of a few sunny patches in Chicago this coming Monday.
p.a.
@Soprano2: These turds have been singing the same “just cut the fat” song since before Reagan. They learn nothing. IIRC Kansas, maybe during W, went looking for the eternal bugbear “welfare cheats”, spent $11million, found a few hundred $k in fraud. I think Kay or one of the other Ohioans mentioned a big $ search for illegal voters. Found about 30. Never let the facts get in the way of a good (usually racist) myth.
Also too, of course gvt has inefficiencies. All human institutions will. I worked for a F-500 company. The shit I saw…(The shit I did🤫)
Nukular Biskits
@Soprano2:
It’s not just sales taxes.
By cutting income taxes, they’re shifting the tax burden down to counties and cities who, in order to maintain critical infrastructure, have to raise property taxes.
A lot of folks just don’t get it: You’ve gotta pay for that sweet, sweet socialism/responsible gov’t one way or another.
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Oh yeah. If women do it, it’s tainted with “girl cooties” and is, by definition, un-serious and worthy of disparagement.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: I think that was meant to reply to Soprano2 as well as a general comment not having to do with latkes.
Sure Lurkalot
That Luckovich cartoon about returning Musk to South Africa…should have been one in 1996 returning Rupert Murdoch to Australia. I posit we’d be a different country without that motherfucker and Fox.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: DelCo just voted for a 23% property tax increase!
Blam!
https://whyy.org/articles/delaware-county-property-tax-hike-pennsylvania/
different-church-lady
Replacing our Twitter junk food addiction with a Bluesky junk food addiction, are we?
Ruviana
@Soprano2: Ah, the delicate aroma of FAFO wafting toward me.
Suzanne
@Kay:
They want women out of public life completely.
Sports is a big axis of parental anxiety right now, moreso than it used to be. Many families spend what I consider horrifying amounts of money on club sports, starting from very early ages, so that their kids will make their school teams and hopefully get athletic scholarships.
I will note that all of this, at core, is about status anxiety.
TBone
@Sure Lurkalot: fer certain.
Kay
We had traveler electricians for Christmas Eve dinner – a surprise – and they call people who wear Carharts but are not in the trades “stolen valor” which I think is hysterical. Theyre really pretty funny. They call older apprentices “apprenticesauruses”
They are all working at the Honda plant in Marysville. I’m a liberal lawyer and I have no problem talking to them without pretending I’m a Kentucky coal miner.
Nukular Biskits
@Soprano2 @TBone
I empathize … just got back from my morning walk/run (the one I usually do at 0430).
But, this weather does bring back memories for me. During the cool/cold, dreary overcast days when I was growing up, particularly during the school Christmas break, is when me and my brother would go exploring in the woods around our house. We’d stay outside almost until dark.
Stomping through the woods in the winter time is a little more enjoyable ’cause you don’t have to worry about snakes and poison ivy/sumac/oak is a lot easier to spot.
Nukular Biskits
@prostratedragon:
And to you as well!
Raven
Sis in law’s have two little houses in West Asheville and we are staying at one. We toured the Arts District and Biltmore Village this morning and a friend asked us to take some pics (this is a sort of repost from the previous thread) but it felt wrong so I got a shot of this Milagro down by the river. https://flic.kr/p/2qBWKk4
I made way too much gumbo so we’re headed back to their house to eat and then head home.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: We are not supposed to call them dumbfucks.
They are dumbfucks.
Kay
@Suzanne:
That’s sad. I have zero interest in sports – none- and I once resented how much public schools spend on it until I had to admit that normal sports participation is really good for kids. NOT parent directed and insane, but kids directed and fun. They benefit.
I used to tear up at my daughters persistence on swim team. She was slow as hell but she never gave up. I think she benefits from that experience every day. She loved her teammates too.
AM in NC
@Raven: I’d love to see any photos you have of the River Arts and Biltmore Village areas post-Helene. We had a business with a location in Asheville (sold the business in 2022), and have not been back since the hurricane damage.
It was horrifying seeing film of water rushing through BV and the RA District. We KNOW those places, and they are integral to the city’s identity and economy.
citizen dave
Since the election, I’ve only been on twitter a couple times–very briefly. I have Blue Sky but haven’t yet engaged there. Partly due to not exercising that social media-speak muscle, those last 5-7 social media posts are nearly indecipherable to me. It’s like another language. I don’t have the desire to even try to figure out what they are saying and debating.
Happy Holidays Juicers!
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
I don’t know the specifics (other than what’s in the article) but a lot of people just can’t seem to wrap their heads around having a civil society with a functioning government that provides programs and services REQUIRES TAXES.
There is a legitimate and eternal argument as to what constitutes the proper amount of taxation, as well as what level of programs & services are to be provided. But a lot of folks are labor under the belief that civil servants are overpaid and that too many of THOSE PEOPLE are somehow benefiting when they shouldn’t be.
Nukular Biskits
@different-church-lady:
Yum!
Nukular Biskits
@Kay:
I only took an interest in sports when my sons played soccer. Other than that, I could care less for sportsball of any type but I do think their is merit in school sports for those kids interested.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Kristine
@Nukular Biskits: and no ticks (or at least a reduced chance)
prostratedragon
“Morning Air,” Willie the Lion Smith.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
There’s no “think” in that statement, it’s not true. The people who thought that one Rogan interview was a key moment were wrong but then those people are wrong about everything.
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits:
Ah, I think I see the problem…
Suzanne
@Kay: Agree. But it makes me sad how much sports access is just another thing parents buy. When we lived in AZ, Spawn the Elder played volleyball, all at recreational level. First through the local YMCA, then through a local sports facility. When they had volleyball tryouts in middle school, over 120 kids tried out for the boys’ and girls’ teams each. The kids that made the teams were largely those who had been playing on club teams since they were young, went to special camps, etc. And this is at a public middle school in a middle-class area.
This is part of what makes me crazy about the sports debate: we need more kids playing. It really does need to be less about winning and more about making friends and having positive experiences. Instead, it’s just another class privilege.
Soprano2
@different-church-lady: I know, they are dumbfucks because they didn’t listen to the whole message. How can you believe someone will do some of the things they say, but not do others? It’s foolish.
different-church-lady
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
And are well rewarded for it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@p.a.:
An old friend of mine was a pointy-haired mid-level manager for what was originally McDonnell-Douglas, then Boeing in STL. The stories he had, and the amount of them, far outweighed just about anything I could relate from the Club Fed side.
Although I can regale people with a story about the head of one state office who ended up with a 10-year jail sentence. I should probably check to see if he’s out.
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
I sort of like baseball. I could see watching that as a hobby. I love the sound of it, but that’s probably because I associate it with summer.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: Oh god, we both called them dumbfucks! We’ve ruined any chance of them ever not being dumbfucks!
Raven
@AM in NC: As I mentioned above, it just didn’t feel right to take pictures of the damage so we didn’t. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. I did take this of a monument above Collier Park.
https://flic.kr/p/2qBY5rg
Nukular Biskits
@Kristine:
Yup! Good point! I had forgotten about those!
prostratedragon
@Sure Lurkalot: Right. But as I recall, instead several rules wrere relaxed/changed/ignored go allow him to build his US media empire while destroying valuable outlets. (I don’t know how the Sun-Times survived, even attenuated as it is.) It was infuriating to watch.
Raven
@Suzanne: I spent 20+ years running municipal sports programs and tried my best to get people to focus on fundamentals rather than outcomes. I finally packed it in and went another direction.
eta I’m also the son of a teacher/coach and love sports. Go Dawgs!!
different-church-lady
@Raven: The really dumb part is that fundamentals are the things that lead to better outcomes. But you can’t get anyone to believe it.
Kay
@Suzanne:
A coach who knows what its really about makes a huge difference. Our girls swim coach was a teacher who loved kids. She checked their grades too. Her daughters are now high school swimmers, which makes me feel ancient. I’m like “McKenzie is 25! She can’t have a 16 year old!”
Suzanne
@Raven: At the local public park, they put the following sign up on the fence around the softball field:
There are elements of sports culture that are absolutely psychotic.
Raven
@different-church-lady: Yep, the even distribution of talent is also important but oft ignored.
Glory b
@Baud: Well Baud, you know what I say about that.
Nukular Biskits
@Raven:
I was a coach or asst coach for one or both son’s teams while they were playing rec soccer.
I had no experience playing soccer as we only had football, baseball and basketball at my school growing up but no one else stepped forward. So I did my best.
Most of the kids were great. Most of the parents were although I did have a couple over the years that didn’t like one think or another. I’ve offered to let them take over coaching/scheduling responsibilities on more than one occasion. That usually quieted them down.
Raven
@Suzanne: I developed a code of conduct that every parent had to sign and it helped. If they acted out we’d remove them and their kid.
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Glad to hear it.
Raven
@Nukular Biskits: The best kind of coach. I always coached in the programs I ran to try to model appropriate behavior.
Suzanne
@Raven: We had an issue on one of the rec teams this year, in which one parent got really pissed at the coach and harassed him for a couple of hours and tried to instigate a fight. Over primary-school-age recreational soccer!
Soprano2
@different-church-lady: It’s like music in that way. You learn scales and chords and arpeggios and practice them constantly, because that helps you better in your performance. People are bored by them, though, so it’s a battle to get them to do it consistently.
JiveTurkin
@Kay: a budget consists of expenditures AND revenue.
I was in finance for 25 years and I worked with budgets. I argue with people all the time and they either don’t get the concept of revenue and expenses or they don’t think it matters. People will never understand that the reason we have a debt of $36 trillion is that there have been three major tax cuts in the last 45 years that were going to “pay for themselves”. So there was no reason to cut expenses because of the huge increase in tax revenue. Which they knew was bullshit, but also knew that the Democrats would get most of the blame.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
What part of “chairwoman of the Lawrence County Republican Party” confused you?
Baud
@Glory b:
100%.
Nukular Biskits
@JiveTurkin:
I see this on the state and local level with so-called “economic incentives”; i.e., using taxpayer funds to lure, subsidize, offset, etc, costs in an attempt to get corporations to locate in the state/county/town.
I don’t know how it works in other states but here in MS that process is rather opaque but it’s ALWAYS presented as a “win”.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud: Touche’!
Soprano2
@Raven: I had a man tell me that one reason so many of the parents liked my father as a coach was the way he modeled behavior. He never got angry or yelled at the players on the court; he always stayed calm and reasonable with them. This man said he thought that helped the players stay calm and reasonable, too. He said he’d seen my dad quietly turn around a basketball game that it appeared they were going to lose. I love the movie “Hoosiers” because it reminds me so much of when my dad coached. I have never been able to stand coaches like Bobby Knight; I don’t care what kind of results they are getting, what kind of person are they building?
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: I used to stomp like that with my lil’ bro when we were kids in wintertime too! Crunchy snow and ice on the little creek in our patch of woods, and a dark, scary, child sized tunnel (a culvert) we were proud of ourselves for conquering!
Thanks for that lovely memory!
AM in NC
@Raven: Sorry I misread your original comment. Thanks for sharing these hopeful photos out of the destruction. Asheville is a special place that doesn’t feel homogenized like so much of America.
Another Scott
Morning everyone.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon:
(Emphasis added.)
“Where you stand depends on where you sit.”
If they don’t hear us, they won’t listen to us. How do we get them to hear us? Dunno.
Back when I was a kid growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, there were Birchers and similar monsters, but they didn’t have control of large segments of the mass media. You could hear Neil Boortz on a 50W radio station, and see Buckley on a PBS talk show, but you had to look for the stuff and really want to hear it. It took effort, and the “serious” media ignored them. Media supported themselves by ads placed by legitimate businesses, want ads posted by normal people, subscriptions from normal people. The National Inquirer and Erich von Daniken were out there, but the PTB ignored them. As long as you didn’t stick out too much from the norm (be non-white, be non-protestant, be non-male) things kinda made sense, reality mostly won, and there was a path for slow progress.
Now, the almighty chasing of clicks and engagement and ever more monthly subscriptions (“you must subscribe to our special video channel – we don’t care if you have 15 video subscriptions already, this extra special show that all your friends watch is only here and you’re missing out!!11”) means that your amygdala isn’t getting enough stimulation unless it’s riled up about something every waking second. Who cares about reality – alternative facts, amirite??! – what matters is what gets more people’s attention. Wall! America First! Cheap gas! Tmurp is telling it like it is! Who cares if people get upset? I don’t like masks and I don’t like getting shots. Pasteurized milk tastes funny! And everyone lies anyway, especially those eggheads at FDA and CDC in the pockets of Big Ag and Big Pharma! Anyway, it doesn’t matter! Don’t bother me, I have a TV show to watch!!11
And, besides, that guy up the street with the Trmup flags and the hot wife seems to be doing pretty well selling Amway and TmurpCoins so maybe he’s on to something…
:-/
[ sigh ]
(via BlueViriginia.US)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Raven
@Soprano2: And Alford at SWMS!
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: in DelCo, the rethugs are descended from long lines of rethug family dumbfucks. They used to have a stranglehold, hence the previous lack of meaningful infrastructure repair/improvement or any other investment in the future.
Baud
@JKC: I don’t want them to get slapped in the face, because innocents would get slapped too. I want them to punish Republicans if Republicans succeed in doing what Republicans have always said they want to do, or even if Republicans attempt it. Otherwise, I don’t care what happens to them.
AM in NC
@Soprano2: Yep, Dean Smith vs. Bobby Knight. As a coach, mentor, and human being, Dean was far superior in every way.
Raven
@Suzanne: The worst!!
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
Theres a program for bankruptcy petitions and one the things you enter is a real breakdown of payroll taxes. In Ohio the state taxes go down as the local taxes go up – Ohio school district and city taxes – collected as payroll taxes – have eaten any gains ordinary people got from reductions in state income taxes. They’re paying more taxes under Republicans.
That’s without local levy property taxes which have also gone up.
It’s a big old shell game.
Raven
@AM in NC: The four corners sucked!!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Soprano2:
The asshole kind.
What we’re talking about in general isn’t anything new in terms of parenting. I saw it first hand in the 70s and have had friends in various sports (mainly baseball) dating back to the early 80s and it’s always been an occupational hazard (meaning the screaming, insane parent–ain’t isolated to sports either, get your kids into theater/acting and there’s a whole subset of parents that in many ways make the screaming father on the sideline seem benign).
I’m amazing my friends have stuck with various aspects of youth baseball all these decades. They’re kind people who, like a couple of you here have related, have made sure they set model behavior for the teams they coach, or when they umpire, etc.
One thing remarked upon in terms of sports and the push to “excel” in terms of gear, private lessons, etc., is essentially another ways of saying that too has been gentrified. Too many parents read Malcolm Fucking Gladwell’s book at 10,000 hours and decided that was what kids needed to do.
TBone
@Kristine: ya know what I had in common with my rumpy neighbor family when we moved here and became friends immediately? LYME has also ravaged many in their family so they were supportive, compassionate, and didn’t try to diminish my suffering as so many others do. Because it had touched all of them in one way or another, they listened and tried to be helpful and sympathetic.
Then when I got Covid, all of that changed…they are impervious.
Alce_e _ ardillo
@Kay: It worked in Vermont, probably because it was small enough of a state that people could get to know their governor.
TBone
@prostratedragon: thank you for that, lovey
oldgold
@AM in NC: That is all true, but on the other side of the ledger, he was the only man to ever hold MJ under 20 points per game.
Raven
@AM in NC: It sure is. Athens is, in some ways, a mini-Asheville. Our nephew has a bakery in Black Mountain and they had very little damage. Luck of the draw.
Joe Falco
@Soprano2:
I had a long conversation with my wife about this as we were traveling to her brother’s home in rural TN. She was playing reaction videos of some West Coast rapper listening to country songs for the first time over the car Bluetooth, and while I have heard many of these country songs in the past, it were the preachy songs that annoyed me the most. Songs like “Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean that are basically one big middle finger to cities and how much better small towns are to cities.
I am from a small town. I’ve lived in the countryside. There is nothing inherently better about either, and this superiority complex that permeates in some country songs just absolutely ruins songs that otherwise would be pleasant or at least manageable to listen to.
Baud
@Joe Falco: I blame John Cougar Mellencamp.
Raoul Paste
@Another Scott: Spot on
satby
@schrodingers_cat: Starting my morning over because I fell asleep three hours ago, and this is good news to wake up to.
Soprano2
@Kay: The sheriffs here tried to get people to vote to put money in their pensions by imposing a $3 fee on every court case. Amazingly the voters were able to see through that fuckery, and voted it down. What an incentive that would have been to generate a lot more bullshit court cases!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Another Scott: From that article you posted…
Yep. This is why I still believe as flawed as NPR, WashPost, etc are, they are still better than social media and the majority of podcasters.
TBone
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: hear, hear!
prostratedragon
Muskville, TX update.
ETA in the comments someone compared the venture to Levittown. A more apt comparison is Pullman, IL, which is now annexed to Chicago.
TBone
A meme featuring Jack Nicholson is always on point
https://bsky.app/profile/fancysplace.bsky.social/post/3le6oge6m4c2i
This one really works for me too
https://bsky.app/profile/fancysplace.bsky.social/post/3le7sntrm6s2p
Kay
If lower income white people started voting for Democrats there is no Dem politician who would turn their nose up at them. We know this because lower income Black people vote for Democrats and Democrats embrace that.
They can wallow in self pity and grievance and insist everyone who is different than them is somehow “dissing” them as long as they want. What they can’t do is indulge in that variety of identity politics and also receive federal subsidies. Choose one.
TBone
@prostratedragon: combine that with the weird, creepy pro-natalism movement and you won’t sleep tonight.
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/11/the-disturbing-rise-of-tech-bro-pronatalism
Joe Falco
@Baud: Hank Williams Jr shares some of the blame as well.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I would argue that it indicates that we need to up our social media game. I am hoping that Bluesky is a tool in that arsenal.
Soprano2
I’ve noticed this, too. They think their way of life is superior to anyone else’s, and they are butthurt in the extreme with anyone who suggests otherwise.
Gvg
@Soprano2: no it goes further than that. They also want to get rid of separation of church and state. Don’t raise the subject yet of which version of Christian church that means. There are lots of reasons for eliminating the education department, but it would lead to the impoverishment of the country and revolts by both parents and a lot of companies. I don’t want to experience it however.
Suzanne
@Joe Falco:
I forget who I was reading on this topic, maybe Tim Alberta? — basically the idea is that people cling to their high-status identities. And the highest-status identity for lots of rural white people is “American”. (Put in quotes because they have a specific white Christian patriarchal archetype about being American.)
Rorty said that one of the best things the American left could do would be to embrace a left-wing patriotism. His piece on that topic was a game-changer for me. As someone who’s always been of the mind that America needs to remember its historical and present sins — and Rorty was by no means encouraging anyone to gloss over those — I had to admit that I never really conceived of a specifically left-wing patriotism.
Kay
As someone who lives and works in a 75% Trump county, I’ll tell you they hate immigrants because they think immigrants are getting federal benefits ONLY THEY are entitled to. I know this because they say it.
People who haven’t worked for 30 years will tell you this. That they “earned” food stamps and Sec 8 and Medicare and grants to rural hospitals and all the tens of other subsidies rural Ohio counties get. They say this while surrounded by Mexican immigrants busting ass and paying into Social Security they will NEVER collect.
I’m out of sympathy. Their opinions spring from mean spiritedness and a lack of generosity. It isn’t noble and “better messaging” isn’t going to fix it.
TBone
@prostratedragon: company store appropriated by Johnny Cash
https://youtu.be/tfp2O9ADwGk
I saw an episode of Finding Your Roots recently, where Cash’s ancestry included a Black woman. Roseanne was surprised but graceful.
https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/rosanne-cash-mom-vivian-liberto-black-ancestry-finding-your-roots-rcna86672
Baud
@Kay:
sounds like a job for DOGE.
Another Scott
@Kay: The problem, of course, is that unless we have enough support to get people into office who will implement sensible policies, things won’t get better. We can’t just write masses of people off. We have to find ways to get them to look at things differently.
Best wishes,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
The rules of Calvinball don’t work that way.
prostratedragon
@TBone:
Just the fact of those 12 children is chilling enough. Further, I a) am a Twin Peaks fan, and b) happen to have just read about the Mazan, France rapes, for which trial just ended. [shudder]
@prostratedragon:
The Pullman strike of 1894 became a national rail strike (Debs was the union president), but it started because of company town issues in Pullman. With reduced earnings from the Panic of ’93, George cut wages while keeping Pullman rents at their previous level.
brantl
@Soprano2: he hasn’t had a full a lot of people they don’t read the fucking paper.
satby
@Another Scott: A more succinct encapsulation I have never read. That wilfully ignorant behavior, which is in service to their racism and misogyny, is why we’re where we are. Propaganda works, especially when it’s tailored individually.
different-church-lady
@TBone: It’s gonna be a laugh riot when the next pandemic wipes out the lot of them in one swipe.
RaflW
@Lapassionara: Musk is an ‘engineering genius’ who’s latest, laughably ugly truck can be bricked by an overnight software update.
The Deplorean has had seven recalls in 2024. It’s a totally bonkers cult.
different-church-lady
DEPARTMENT OF PASSIVE AGGRESSION: I’m reading back through the mid section of the comments and I am seriously reconsidering my policy to never pie anyone.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
Very true. Chatted with a mom in Telluride, a beautiful town in a box canyon (I.e. not along a beaten path) who drove her hockey playing 12 year old as far as Texas for league games in winter. Would that more people would dedicate like amounts of time, energy and money to education.
i’d also add that kids need unstructured physical activity too. Doing things for their own sake and finding joy in movement, nature and being. Winning is grand but it’s far less than everything.
TBone
@prostratedragon: I was following along with Gisele too, trying not to cry and vomit at the same time. My forever hope that she prevails because that woman’s got True Grit.
satby
@different-church-lady: I pie aggressively. It’s improved threads immensely.
Kay
@Bupalos:
You’re in Ohio so.lets talk about actual populists. Sherrod Brown and Marcy Kaptur. Populists for THIRTY YEARS who have consistently delivered for the working class. Sherrod lost and Marcy only won because organized labor dragged her over the finish line in a squeaker.
You ignore evidence right in front of you because you’re in love with this fantasy of liberal snobs dissing the working classes. It isn’t true. In fact, working class whites do their own identity politics which involves blaming other people for everything.
different-church-lady
@satby: Yes, but then I’d be losing some significant data points on the mechanics of leftist-stupid.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: What did I miss? I thought this thread was pretty benign.
satby
@different-church-lady: nah, you can always toggle, but after a few tries you’ll realize it’s the same old, same old and you’re not missing anything.
Soprano2
Yep, I see them say it on FB. “Not one immigrant should get anything as long as one American veteran is homeless”. Of course, most of them don’t care about homeless people, either.
satby
@zhena gogolia: 😆 no idea really; probably someone I pied 😂
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: Rorty has this great chapter called “American National Pride” and this passage:
He goes on about Dewey, and not abandoning “secular, antiauthoritarian vocabulary of shared social hope…. In favor of a vocabulary built around the notion of sin”.
It’s a worthy read.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: It is. There’s just one idiot who constantly gets everything wrong who jumps out at me like a sore thumb that I refuse to engage with directly because there’s no way to do it without calling that commenter an idiot and so I do this passive aggressive thing instead.
Glad to see another taking the first directly to task with no rest stops.
TBone
@different-church-lady: ugh! But the wealthy ones are only anti-vaxx for others, their lessers, they all get their jabs on the down low!
Bupalos
@Kay: cosplaying as people you want to co-opt is not the same thing as actually rhetorically attacking systemic problems in an effective populist way. Trump and Musk look and acts absolutely nothing like the rural rubes they are fleecing. But what they both do is speak for alienation and as if the status quo is a kind of disaster. Which it actually is, just broadly speaking not in the ways they describe and not in ways that grift and circuses can address.
The health insurance ceo shooting and reaction is instructive of the level of general political disgust at systemic rot which Dems simply won’t touch with a 10 foot pole. But since we won’t, we come off as defenders of a status quo. Which… we really can’t get around the reality that we just lost an election against a very unpopular politician, trying to campaign with Liz Cheney in a kind of status quo unity campaign.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2:
“I’m glad to hear you’ll be taking in a homeless veteran!”
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
There’s some politics discussion. Must be strictly policed lest it become upsetting or divisive or even slight!y negative towards any elected Democrat.
satby
@Soprano2: they don’t. The tell is “veteran is homeless”. Because they’re the same people who want the homeless pushed out of public sight, even though sizable numbers of homeless men are veterans. And they’re the same people who vote for the guys who constantly refuse to adequately fund the VA and other veteran benefits.
satby
@Kay: yeah, wrong again.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Naw, that’s not it.
ETA: Here’s a hint — I deeply admire your tenacity.
Sure Lurkalot
@Soprano2:
Absolutely! And, those drills in music, the practice and focus translates to other disciplines and so on and so on.
Soprano2
QFT!!!!!!!!! In their eyes (and the eyes of most of the press) they are the “salt of the Earth real Americans” who have not done anything wrong and who have earned every benefit they have, as opposed to those “city dwellers” (read: foreigners and non-white people) who are lazy no-goods who don’t appreciate where their food comes from and sit on their lazy asses all day waiting for their handouts. LOL They think everyone in cities steal stuff, kill each other and riot all the time. They think this because that’s what conservative media tell them cities are like. Half of them think I live in a crime-ridden hellhole because I live on the “bad” side of my city. They have no idea what it’s actually like to live in a city.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Democrats do attack systemic problems. Joe Biden’s domestic policy was a populists dream – you know my opinion of his foreign policy. That’s not an accident. It was like that because Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders had huge input into it. For populist liberals to now deny that these fucking poseurs proved more popular than the real thing is tough to admit, but its true.
They won’t do better than Sherrod Brown. It was fucking stupid to.pitch him in the trash, but this is what they CHOSE. I no.longer have time for people who can’t do the slightest thing to help themselves.
different-church-lady
Some people really just resolutely cannot accept that the middle of the country has so much moral rot that they adore what Trump feeds them, and instead this must be the result of Democratic failings to make vegetables taste like candy.
frosty
@Kay: Why do they want women out of sports completely? Is this true? Is it because I’d rather watch Simone Biles and women’s gymnastics than men? Or the same with basketball if I ever watched any basketball?
I suppose trying to make it make sense is a mug’s game.
Plus, good luck getting US women out of the Olympics. I don’t see how Title IX has anything to do with downhill skiing or equestrians for example. I take your point on anything school-related though: track and field, basketball, volleyball, etc.
Soprano2
@different-church-lady: Hehehe, I think I’ll use that next time I see or hear it. They use that as an easy way to say they don’t think immigrants should get anything, or even be here. They can’t acknowledge that most immigrants are hard-working people who don’t get handouts.
prostratedragon
@TBone: There was DNA evidence in 2010 that might have led to him being locked up to this day. The documented rapes of Gisèle began in 2011. That might help keep her going.
Soprano2
@Sure Lurkalot: Yes, I’ve always said that band, orchestra and choir also teach people to work together for a common goal – it’s not just sports that does that. Everyone has their part, and everyone’s part is important as part of the whole.
Soprano2
I wish they would come and live here for a couple of months, they’d find out real quick exactly what the “heartland” is like for real. The “I didn’t think TCFG would hurt people like me” woman is pretty representative of all of them.
AM in NC
@Raven: Yeah, but he evolved with the shot clock, and he cared about his players as people and students, not just athletes.
prostratedragon
@Soprano2: Just like their grand/great-grandparents were.
frosty
I saw this in Baltimore where the lacrosse parents were crazy – get the kid into one of the local private schools, then a scholarship to Hopkins or Syracuse or one of the other lacrosse powers.
When my son was in fifth grade he wanted to play both baseball and lacrosse. The baseball parents were totally laid back. As for me, I looked at the best outcomes: college scholarship vs. major league salary. I was in favor of sticking with baseball!
Kay
@Bupalos:
It went from “people will love populism” to “well, the policy wasn’t SYSTEMIC enough”
okey doke. I am on the Left side of the Democratic Party and this denial embarrasses me. Look at Ohio and tell me Democrats weren’t populist enough. This state has had populist Democrats my entire adult life. They threw us out.
LAC
@satby: I like your stance regarding pie. I toggle and generally find the reason I pied a poster initially is still there. No growth, just arrogance. It is small number of pies but it makes the reading easier.
Kay
@Bupalos:
I mean, these people are CHEERING a unelected South African billionaire running the federal budget! Tell me again how they’re “populists”
satby
@Soprano2: @prostratedragon: As the blog father wrote many years ago. (Gosh, in 2012, and still even more relevant today).
Ksmiami
@Soprano2: they can choke on Trump’s policies for all I care…
Bupalos
@Kay: I agree that Biden, against all odds, actually put strong ameliorative policy into place could actually help the fundamentals over the course of decades.…
And this policy focus largely came from him finding common policy ground with our own more left-populist figures, Bernie and Liz. And it didn’t pay off politically in the short term. All true.
But it doesn’t just matter that it’s true, it matters WHY it’s true. I think it failed politically because the rhetoric didn’t actually match the policy, and essentially never even acknowledged the depth of the crisis. Trump’s American Carnage speech was indeed some weird shit. And the insurrection was both weird and profoundly destructive. But these things marked him and his political movement as profoundly unsatisfied with the status quo, in a way Dems refuse to even begin to match with intensifying passion on our own dissatisfaction. In fact, we’ve gone generally the opposite direction, ceding Trump the ground of crusading (destroying) reformer and taking up a position of a defense of the status quo. This is a politically terrible place to be in an age that is practically guaranteed to become more destabilized and paralyzed year by year.
different-church-lady
I’ll repeat something from a couple of weeks ago:
CliosFanboy
@schrodingers_cat:
I am glad he’s doing better….
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: “Hey we agree with you, the government we’ve been leading the past four years is all kindza fucked up!” — Now that’s some XXXL-brained messaging shit you proposing right there!
Kay
@different-church-lady:
Making cryptic statements about the tone of the comments is actually passive aggressive. Just FYI. Who don’t you address the person or persons you’re talking to? Is this a guessing game?
frosty
Also, not all sports. I ran (dead last) cross-country in high school and if there’s any sport that doesn’t involve working together, it’s this one. Get to the starting line, run as hard as you can, and beat everyone you can – it didn’t matter what team they were on.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Okay, I think I know who you mean. My scrolling finger has gotten very practiced. I don’t have anyone pied at the moment!
different-church-lady
@Kay:
That’s exactly what I fessed up to doing!
ETA: Any rate, no need to be coy now, since, against better judgement I just dropped the passive part…
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: They were panicking over the summer that their boys were about to be sent to Ukraine. Have they noticed that that didn’t happen? Or that there is no draft? Or that their boys are worthless layabouts? No.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Exactly.
Soprano2
@satby: Yes, it is. They pretty much hate anyone who thinks they shouldn’t be in charge of everything. They love Musk because he’s who they aspire to be, just like TCFG.
satby
@different-church-lady: in capital letters right up top. You weren’t obscure at all.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Haha, I didn’ t know what you meant by that. I guess that was part of the guessing game.
Baud
I prefer to be aggressively passive myself.
Bupalos
@Kay: populism is not the same as democratic or egalitarian.
Populism is really just a mode of talking about politics in informal ways that make sense to less informed and educated people in their lives and preconceived notions.
Musk’s populist credentials come from his loudly-lived critique of bureaucracies and rules. A kind of “one exceptional person, unencumbered by all your phony political bullshit and silly (whimpy) safety concerns, can get the near impossible done.” This is a powerful populist story in an age of government gridlock and paralysis.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Because I’m trying to convince myself it’s better to not wrestle with this particular pig.
satby
@Baud: There’s room for everyone at the table babe.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Be sure to film it for the deposition.
Kay
@Bupalos:
And I think dramatic statements comparing themselves to fucking Dust Bowl Okies or whatever ” oh, we are barely surviving!” is bullshit. The people storming the capitol were all middle class or better. They MAY NOT pretend they are poor. It is not my job to somehow DIVINE the inchoate rage of real estate salespeople and contractors driving 80,000 trucks to their 4000 square ft house. They are whiny SOFT crybabies who pitched a hissy fit over the low interest rates they think they are entitled to.
There are 22 year olds coming into my office whining that they have to have roommates. I had FOUR at 21. They thought they got a house at 21? WTF? Their willful flight from reality is somehow the fault of Democrats?
Go look at the actual relief they got for that train catastrophe in Ohio. I refuse to pretend they were abandoned! Its a LIE. But they love the lie because somehow their “culture” has become resenting everyone. I wont play this game.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
“Meta”, we used to call that. Commentary about the comments. Back in the political blog days.
Miss Bianca
@satby: I remember reading that one, and wow – you are right. Even more depressingly true today.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
But no matter how many times you tell them, they’ll keep inviting us to it.
Geminid
@Raven: I don’t how Turkiye is when it comes to youth sports, but they strictly enforce laws concerning conduct at professional sports events. Last December there were nationwide headlines when a minor league team owner confronted a referee after a game had ended and punched him out.
The owner was a prosperous businessman who happened to be one of the founding members of President Erdogan’s* AK Party. One might think a wealthy, politically connected person like him might get a break, but that guy didn’t even get a bail hearing for eleven days.
In the meantime, the AK Party expelled the owner and Turkiye’s football association banned him for life. I don’t know happened to him afterwards, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the two fans who kicked the ref while he was down are still in prison.
* R.T. Erdogan was a dedicated footballer in his youth, good enough to get an invite from a semi-pro team based in the provincial capital. Young Recip would have accepted but his father, a Coast Guardsman, put his foot down. ” No, son,” said Mr. Erdogan. “You’re going to college.” One of those historical inflection points.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady:
I think that analysis-by-ridicule is stuck in the kind of mentality that has the Democratic brand finding new lows year by year. Of course you can (and in this age should) run even an incumbent campaign as a passionate, angry reformer. You can and should talk about how fucked things are if the opinion of the electorate is that things are fucked up. And that is rather emphatically nearly everyone’s opinion right now. When you refuse to engage and use that dissatisfaction and frame it to your own issues, but rather waste time arguing against it, you lose.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Forget it, Kay. This is a person who is, apparently seriously, arguing that Democrats should stop defending democratic institutions and that Elon Musk, that shambolic avatar of John Galt/Frankenstein’s monster, somehow fits some sort of definition of “populist.”
These are the “serious arguments” of a profoundly unserious, silly person.
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: Remind me again how many winning campaigns you’ve run?
Kay
@different-church-lady:
You know this, but there are other posts you could be commenting on. I get that this bores you. Endless commentary about the comments, policing the comments, dramatic public announcements about pieing people who can never be named as a kind of in-group signifier bores ME, so I’m out.
I agree with Bupelos on some things and not others. I hope he keeps commenting on politics here. I don’t care at all if he’s popular.
different-church-lady
@Kay: To be clear, I ain’t saying you should stop. Like I said: admirable tenacity.
Citizen Alan
@JKC: my heart weeps for all the innocent.People who voted for kamala harris (or were too young to even viote at all) but will suffer terribly under Shitgibbon’s second reign. Everyone who voted for the bastard or voted third party or was simply too cool and cynical to bother flling out a ballot deserves every bit of suffering that hits them now and for the rest of their lives. I am no longer capable of feeling the slightest bit of compassion or empathy for you a pack of sadistic ingrates.
Bupalos
@Kay: You don’t get to “refuse to play the game.”
I mean, you can, but what happens is what you’re seeing. Someone else more politically talented comes in and divines a way to use the nebulous dissatisfaction embodied in the rather complicated truth that people in East Palestine think they are being discarded or sacrificed.
It’s a gun laying on the table and either you use it or your opponent does.
where we’d be in agreement is that you can’t affirm your opponents narrative about WHY and HOW they are being failed. You have to shape it to your own positive political project. You have to figure out the populist politics that works in your favor.
which isn’t hard at all in that case, but involves using dirty phrases like “rapacious corporation” and “cost-cutting ceo parasites.” But we aren’t ready for that kind of politics on our side of the aisle.
Bupalos
@Kay: It’s commentary on the internet. 95% of post comments are attempts to find community or conflict.
Always appreciate your low-meta, no-nonsense content.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: I would recommend the late Eric Flint’s 1632 series as a great exploration of left-wing patriotism. Yes, it’s alternative history science fiction about a small mining town in West Virginia that gets transported back in time and space to Germany in 1632, and decides to start the American revolution ahead of schedule. Flint was a card-carrying socialist and labor organizer with a master’s degree in African history. The first book came out when I was in law school, and it made me think about how would we rebuild American democracy if we were starting from scratch.
MCat
@schrodingers_cat: Great news!
Suzanne
@frosty:
Because, in their view, the social role of women is to be supportive of and attractive to men. Not to have agency, not to attract attention, not to engage in competitions.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
Unless they’re beauty competitions.
Suzanne
@Kayla Rudbek: I will look it up, thanks for the tip! I am not much of a sci-fi reader — simply because I don’t get to read as much as I’d like — so I appreciate recommendations.
Elizabelle
@Kayla Rudbek: The things we learn on this blog. Way cool. Never heard of Eric Flint or 1632. Interesting idea.
Kathleen
@Another Scott: Probably way too late for the thread but I agree with your recollection of how right wing was treated by media in the early 60’s. The book Dallas 1963 a book I can’t recommend highly enough recounts Bobby Kennedy’s reference to them as right wing nut jobs and the media neither blinked nor clutched pearls.
Soprano2
Come sit by me. I had two roommates when I was in college. I never lived by myself the whole time I was single!!! These people are being unrealistic in their expectations.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The original 1632 book is available for free from the publisher for download:
https://www.baen.com/1632.html
One of the biggest obstacles to reading the series, at first glance, is the sheer number of books. Many of them are side plots and everything is messy if you want something a bit less all-over-the-map.
This guy has the easiest presentation of the books, order of reading, core material, etc:
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/576429/
AM in NC
@frosty: My kids had such a different XC experience in middle school. Older kid ran when two runner moms coached the team as volunteers. All kids were welcome to run, and there were some kids who were going to go on to XC scholarships to college and some kids (like mine) who were finishing at the back of the pack every time. But they were a TEAM, and they cheered one another on, and it was a great community.
By the time my younger son did XC 3 years later, the volunteers’ kids had graduated years before and they finally stopped volunteering to coach the team. It was coached by a male PE coach who was only about the winners and didn’t want anyone else on the team. Just a horrible experience for my kid, who quit after a couple of weeks, along with half the team.
It was really sad.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Kay: i have a friend who has basically permanent medical issues which means he always will need an aide to help him daily for a few hours. He’s also on Arizona’s version of medicaid. Over the years, whenever AZ gets in a budget crunch his case manager jiggers around his care so that he gets way more food stamps(federal $$$) or he gets more medicare(again federal $$$) before it flips to medicaid. His aide hours will get cut so he’ll somehow have to pay out of pocket to the aide for a few hours. Anyhow, my friend likens it to air in a balloon. You can squeeze the air from one side of the balloon to the another side but you’ll still have the air.
Citizen Alan
@TBone: i haven’t stopped hating them since the iraq war.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: i agree. Man, are we gonna hear a lot of angry squealing from soccer moms who were flinging themselves onto the fainting couch at the thought that little meghan and ashley might have to share a locker room with a trans girl once meghan and ashley aren’t allowed to do any kind of sports at all.
AM in NC
@Citizen Alan: As an OG female Ashley (when it was mostly still a boy’s name) I resent that remark!
I hated my name as a kid because nobody had it; then I grew to really like it; then every blond young thing had it, and I was like WTF?!
TBone
@Citizen Alan: hate requires a singular devotion that I do not possess right now, a use of energy that I prefer to divert toward something positive. Something learned by being of physically limited capacity is that I must choose which priority activity gets my energy. Right now it isn’t going toward hate for anyone.
I am too tired for hate.
different-church-lady
@TBone: Slacker.
TBone
@different-church-lady:
L. O. frickin’ L !!!
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
They are opposed to egalitarian socialism. No one in the white working class would object in the slightest to UBI if it was limited to them, and to people who look like them. We would have scandinavian style socialism in this country if there are a way to prevent minorities from accessing it
Citizen Alan
@Kay: Agreed. Honestly, at this point I kind of want the democratic party to overtly become the enemy of the midwestern farmer. I would rather buy every bit of food. I eat for the rest of my life from Mexico and Canada than support some asshole in iowa or kansas, who is committed to the destruction of our democracy.
different-church-lady
@Citizen Alan: There’s gotta be a better way…
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: shit, even when I was a practicing lawyer and could afford to live alone, i have friends who moved in to my spare rooms and paid rent. Because if I had two people living with me who I got along with and who covered my mortgage, why wouldn’t I do that?!?
Citizen Alan
@TBone: perhaps contempt then. That doesn’t really require much effort at all. In fact, I find it comes quite naturally to me.
TerryC
@Suzanne: I do left-wing patriotism: My private disc golf courses at my home are named the BRATS Red, White and Blue courses. I fly an American flag on each one of the three courses.
I even have a Confederate flag behind one large bush as a place to pee.
TerryC
@Elizabelle: Very entertains series!
TerryC
I apologize about that last comment. I don’t know what happened to it. I was recommending the book and story series.
dnfree
@frosty: That’s not how cross-country is scored, at least in my experience (daughter who participated). Your team’s score is the first five runners from your team. You can have two awesome runners who finish first and second, and if you don’t have three more runners who finish fairly well, your team will lose to the team that has maybe third place, and fifth place, and sixth, and eighth…. Sure, some kids don’t take part in that and are always at the back of the pack, but even they see more action than the kids on the bench in basketball. And there might be a week that kid is the fifth runner.
i also liked that at least in Illinois, the girls and boys practiced together, went to meets together, and cheered each other on.
cmorenc
@Soprano2:
He was very astute about which companies he chose to buy. But engineering or science geinius, nope.