I think the other FPers got raptured! Pretty please: feel free to play any game other than PUMAs vs Obots in this thread. It was fun in aught seven-eight, but it’s boring now. Pets! Sports! Weather! Cooking! Election 2014! Heard any good jokes lately? Anything but…that.
Reader Interactions
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Original Lee
Movies based on books, rated PG-13 or R – looking for suggestions!
burnspbesq
That.
This, too.
And the other thing.
WaterGirl
Great idea, Betty! thank you
Can we talk about TV? I just finished the second season of Orphan Black and would love to hear from other Orphan Black watchers.
Also, did anybody watch Leftovers on HBO? We watched the premier but we all thought it was really dark, too dark to want to watch the show. But I do want to watch the ending, whenever that is, because I found the idea really interesting. Watching the teens at the party was what made it too much for me.
Edit: Anyone watching Halt & Catch Fire or the Musketeers? I am recording, but haven’t watched yet.
Gorgon Zola
Made an adaptation of this recipe last night. Incredibly, it worked.
Roger Moore
How about Obots vs. Firebaggers? We haven’t had one of those in the past few seconds.
Alex S.
@Original Lee:
Atlas Shrugged, rated PG-13
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/
Belafon
That would be one weird group to get raptured, unless Satan gets to go first.
dmsilev
Something I read this morning: “In figure 1 we show transmission data for red wine samples from eight different countries. Obviously some of these wines can be recognized due to their spectral features.”
(a) I’m obviously in the wrong field.
(b) “So a physicist and a THz spectrophotometer walk into a bar…”
scav
Doctor Who scripts escape BBC! ummmmm. X-rays of critters! including a chicken just for Betty. A coot too for any enthusiasts of same.
BethanyAnne
I so enjoyed this weekend. I was out travelling for the past couple of weeks, and this weekend I got to stay home. Cleaned my stuff, put it all away, tended to my cat. She’s 18, and all sorts of Old Cat Ailments have popped up. They said she is losing weight, and I said “Challenge Accepted.” I am now the Gravy Delivery Fairy – she meows loudly, and wet food with gravy magically appears. Didn’t take her long to catch on to that racket.
In other news, ESO is a pretty darn solid game. I just finished getting a 2nd faction cleared – Aldmeri Dominion and Daggerfall Covenant down, only Ebonhart Pact to go. Maybe not as fun as Skyrim, but still a solid game. The voice acting alone is worth the price of admission.
BGinCHI
@WaterGirl: Loving Halt and Catch Fire. Really great so far. Has what all shows like that need: excellent ensemble.
Musketeers good too, though pretty silly. Guilty pleasure so far.
Cassidy
@Original Lee: Odd Thomas. It’s on Netflix.
burnspbesq
I’ve watched the first two episodes of “Tyrant.” It is Gawd-awful, but I am hooked. We may have some serious guilty-pleasure viewing here. Perhaps at the “Road House” level.
BethanyAnne
Oh, and if you are in the mood to hate on humanity, or at least the conservative tribe, there’s the “Rolling Coal” thing. http://www.metafilter.com/140597/Rolling-Coal-Everything-Else-About-It-Is-Pretty-Good
Belafon
Saw a piece about Antonio Meucci and his invention of the voice telegraph. The TV show described where he came up with the idea: He was attempting to cure some woman’s tooth pain by sending 114 volts across a wire stuck in her mouth. While he was two rooms away, he believed he heard her scream over the wire.
scav
@dmsilev: Then a geographer walks in and cages a drink. Are they hunting for terroir or is it more varietal / other based? Are portable pen-sized wine-wands in our future so we can sniff disapprovingly of what people are drinking across the cocktail party?
low-tech cyclist
@Belafon:
A few decades back, I wanted to start a religion based on the belief that the Rapture had already occurred, and the reason why nobody could find Jimmy Hoffa’s body was that he was the only one taken.
currants
@Belafon: *grin* NO! It’s PERFECT. Betty’s next, you just watch!
MattF
Saw Maleficent over the weekend. There’s Mrs. Pitt, so it’s a fun movie.
TXkid
I flexed my baking muscles this weekend. America’s Test Kitchen’s almost no knead bread (awesome rustic loaf with almost no effort), and cherry pocket pies! If you’ll excuse me, I need to find my way to the nearest treadmill…
JPL
@Gorgon Zola: That does sound interesting and as soon as the cherry tomatoes ripen, I’m going to try it.
Tom Levenson
Ooops. Bigfooted. (or, in my case, size 10D footed, but never mind.)
Open threading: how about my child hood team the Swinging A’s … ! This is the year (unless it’s not.)
burnspbesq
@low-tech cyclist:
Jimmy Hoffa was part of Giants Stadium. Everybody knows that.
Karen in GA
@WaterGirl: I’ve been watching it because I’ve always liked Christopher Eccleston, and I wanted to see his performance as an American pastor. Next week’s episode is supposed to feature his story pretty prominently.
After that, though, who knows — I tried reading the book, got halfway through it, and realized I don’t care about the characters. I get the feeling the cause of the disappearances won’t be revealed — the idea is to follow these people in the aftermath, and see how they cope, etc. 2% of the world’s population disappears, and I’m supposed to ignore that and focus on the characters dealing with loss? Well, fine, but I’ve already seen The Sweet Hereafter. I give it points for turning religion on its head (we’ll see more of that next week, I think), but so far I don’t think that’s enough to save it. Next week’s episode will have to be phenomenal to keep me interested past that.
Maybe I’m an uneducated Philistine (“maybe” = definitely. I admit it), but it’s just too one-note for me.
ETA, because I’m bored and can’t shut up: how is it that in a town full of traumatized people, not one of them is handling it by being hysterically funny? Lots of people use dark humor to deal with stress — you’d think at least one person there would be a freakin’ riot.
burnspbesq
OD’ed on trashy military technology fiction over the long weekend. One Dale Brown’s Dreamland and one Tom Clancy’s Op-Center. The Op-Center book featured a female Naval aviator. That would never have happened while Clancy was alive.
Sir Laffs-a-Lot
@Betty; moar goodness:
http://cheezburger.com/8237895424
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2674749/Aint-hound-hog-Virginia-Juliana-pig-thinks-shes-boxer-dog-likes-eating-sausages.html
(sry for the Daily Mail aspect; ishy)
WaterGirl
@TXkid: Links to recipes, or do you have to be a member to see them?
I have to confess the cherry pocket pie is most intriguing.
Amir Khalid
I doubt anyone in a non-Randinho thread will care much, but there’s some sad news from the world of football: Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano has died at the age of 88 after suffering a heart attack on Saturday.
tesslibrarian
@Karen in GA: I don’t think the mystery will be solved because the author wrote the book to explore mystery in our lives. Fresh Air replayed an interview with him a week or two ago. We saw the first episode because the hotel we were in that night had HBO; I don’t think we’re missing much, but after hearing the author interview, I’m a little curious about the book.
Does anyone have any experience doing research in the Paris Archives and French National Archives? Paris has a lot online that I’m finding useful for sussing out the long-lost/never told story of my great-grandfather who was born there in 1872 (and books by Rachel Fuchs is helping me with the social policy side of things), but for my great-grandmother, I am not finding her records and worry I will have to hit the National Archives when there in November. (My husband has a conference there for a week; I’m going to try to get some research done with my abysmal French.)
Anyway, if anyone else has done research like this, I’d love to hear of your experiences. I thought of hiring someone, but I’m a history/genealogy researcher here, and tend to like to find my own docs, even if it means an afternoon of translation (as it did with my great-grandfather’s birth registry). Alas, I’m pretty sure the maiden name for my great-grandmother isn’t correct/accurate, and when dealing with the wrong name, even pros have trouble.
Also, Short Poppies on Netflix is fun and not political. If you liked Flight of the Conchords, you’ll like this. Rhys Darby is hilarious in it.
Phylllis
Watching the James Mason/Judy Garland A Star is Born on TCM. Should be working on a grant narrative, but I really (sorta kinda) need to talk to one more person before I can put all the pieces together. In other words, procrastinating.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@burnspbesq:
Lt. Kara Hultgreen was designated a Naval Aviator in the early 90s. When the Navy integrated women into its combat forces, Lt. Hultgreen was trained to fly the F-14. She was killed in 1994 when her F-14 crashed on final approach to the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of San Diego.
WaterGirl
@BGinCHI: Glad to hear that about Halt & Catch Fire.
As for Musketeers, I have no problem with silly shows that don’t take themselves too seriously. I am almost never able to watch sitcoms, but I loved Spin City with Michael J. Fox.
⚽️ Martin
It’s 85 degrees in my office. It’s not even 85 degrees outside. Life in a Frank Gehry building. It’s pretty, but it’s about as practical as a cave.
WaterGirl
@Karen in GA: You made me laugh with your “ETA, because I’m bored and can’t shut up” line.
I’m actually okay with Leftovers being about how everybody is coping with the loss; I liked that they didn’t go the obvious route. But it’s just too dark. I agree, there should be some group that responds with a seize the day attitude, not just all the darkness. Or, like you said, people who handle it all with humor. Good to know that we will probably never learn about what happened to the 2%.
I’m not necessarily a “happy show” person, but there has to be at least one character that I like or admire or something. All that hopelessness and despair was too much. I even watch Criminal Minds (though with Tivo I double-fast forward through all the icky parts) because I like the characters and I like the “figuring it all out” parts.
And I love Orphan Black. I think Tatiana Maslany is the best actor I have ever seen.
Original Lee
@Alex S.: Thhhhhhhhhbbbbbt!
Original Lee
@Cassidy: That one looks pretty interesting! Thanks!
⚽️ Martin
@BethanyAnne: The visual embodiment of ‘asshole’.
Betty Cracker
@tesslibrarian: I read the book. Here’s my review: meh.
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq: How much did GIECO save you and in how much time?
(I couldn’t resist, even though it comes out backwards.)
ranchandsyrup
farging exhausted today and trying to figure out how in the heck our daughter got a hair tourniquet that put us in a couple of ERs yesterday.
Yay parenting!
Cassidy
@Original Lee: I liked it. I really like Anton Yelchin. It’s got a similiar vibe to The Frighteners, but is a better movie.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: Man, that sucks. Hope she’s ok. Time to get the wife’s head shaved.
TXkid
@WaterGirl: So with any America’s Test Kitchen recipe, if you go to their website, you have to be a member to see it, but so many people have posted stuff online that I can usually find the recipe at an ancillary site so voila! Link below:
The bread recipe was ridiculously easy. Note, they borked the amount of beer in the bread, should be a 1/2 cup, not 1/4)
The cherry pocket pies were a bit more… freelance.
Filling
1 can tart pie cherries, drained (not cherry pie filling)
1/4 c sugar (fairly tart, could go more if you like a sweeter filling)
1 T corn starch
pinch salt
Pie crust, whatever pie dough you like, I like the all butter pie crust from America’s Test Kitchen.
I divided the dough into 8 chunks, lining 4 6oz ramekins with 4 pieces of rolled out dough, then equally distributing the filling among the ramekins. Cover each the with remaining 4 pieces of pie dough. Seal and bake at 400 for about ~40 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling.
Eric U.
sad to say, the rapture happened as originally planned back during Roman times. We are living through the tribulations
WaterGirl
@ranchandsyrup: You guys must be exhausted, but the outcome was great, and in a few years this will just be a story you tell.
There’s an art store in my town that has this stenciled on their storefront: Everything is going to be okay.
It’s amazingly comforting to read that, even when I’ve seen it dozens of times before.
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: LOL she does have some luxurious hair. Daughter handled it way better than we did. She was smiling most of the day unless she receiving a shot to numb the toe or having the toe cut into. Amazing how resilient they are.
TXkid
And I’ve managed to create one giant fuck off link. HTML fail.
ranchandsyrup
@WaterGirl: That is comforting to read. Thx. :)
Riley's Enabler
@WaterGirl: Oh, loved loved loved Orphan Black. I was worried Season 2 wouldn’t keep up the tension and mystery of Season 1, but it did that and more. I’m having spasms at the thought of waiting another YEAR for more goodness.
Tried ep. 1 of Leftovers – too dark. I don’t see sitting through a summer of glum.
Hopped back into True Blood just for the final season (seasons 3-6 were complete wastes, IMO). it’s still terrible, but now it’s terrible and going away.
Just finished an epic marination in all 18 eps of the first and only season of “Freaks and Geeks”. So good. So darn good.
Origuy
I left the following post at the end of a moribund thread yesterday:
I just finished a book that I think a lot of people here would enjoy: Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough: Diagnosing the Medical Groans and Last Gasps of Famous Writers by John J. Ross, MD Besides the two writers in the title, it talks about Joyce, Milton, the Brontës, and others. I guess there is a lot of information available about their conditions from their correspondence. A lot of the problems they had were from the treatment used in those days.
Some of the information comes from the writings of their doctors, in the pre-HIPAA days.
WaterGirl
@TXkid: Well, the link took me to the bread recipe, and I was able to copy the cherry pie stuff, so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned!
I will try the little pies. I wish I had had that recipe a few weeks ago when I got about a dozen cherries on my tart cherry tree. (first year) I could have made myself a little mini pie. Never fear, blueberries coming up, so I will adapt the recipe.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: Yep. Thank FSM.
Just ordered a new bike seat for Xavi to ride on the wife’s bike, and he cannot understand why it can’t be here NOW. Right now. Inconsolable.
Reminds me of how the Tea Party feels about the Constitution. Same level of maturity.
CarolDuhart2
@WaterGirl: I don’t watch tv that much, but one thing would work: happy squatters in the houses of the disappeared. What do you do when the rightful owners have not only disappeared, but no one else knows what do do about it? The misantropes who are happy that certain people they don’t really like are gone. New faces in old places in varying moods.
Riley's Enabler
@ranchandsyrup: Oh no, I dreaded those when my sprog was a tot, to the point of obsessively checking all of his extremities (yep, that one too) nightly. I’m so glad she is ok, poor wee thing.
SixStringFanatic
@burnspbesq: One of the dumbest rumors to gain widespread acceptance in awhile. Made no sense for Detroit mobsters to cart Hoffa’s dead ass all the way to NJ to bury in a football stadium. I lived in Detroit from ’76-’81 and the persistent rumor has always been that, if his body is intact, it’s buried in the foundations of the Renaissance Center. Might not be true but makes a hell of a lot more sense.
CarolDuhart2
@BGinCHI: At least he’ll grow out of it. Teabaggers: not so promising.
trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup: Awww, hope the little one is okay. We have progressed to tween stage without knowing this is even a thing, luckily.
Cassidy
@ranchandsyrup: Easy and common.
tesslibrarian
@Betty Cracker: Disappointing. It’s so hard to find good fiction. Kate Atkinson just doesn’t publish enough.
WaterGirl
@Riley’s Enabler: If you love Orphan Black, you might really enjoy these reviews by Danielle Henderson. She shares my sensibilities about the show, so I thick they are great. (She also reviews Louie and Orange is the New Black, but I don’t watch those shows so I haven’t read those.)
http://nymag.com/author/danielle%20henderson/
If you want to start with the season 2 reviews, start from the bottom up. She has reviews of all 10 season 2 episodes.
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: “Back when I was a youngster, it took 6-8 weeks to get something mail delivered.” *Ties onion to belt.
Enjoy the bike rides!
@Riley’s Enabler: Thx. I did a toe check this morning. The docs yesterday said that boys can get them on their pen1ses which freaked me out. But they said they’re easier to remove “because there is no bone” which made me giggle a bit.
WaterGirl
@BGinCHI: I was about to write that I sometimes feel like that when I order something really cool, but then I saw your tea party comparison, so perhaps I will decline to mention that after all. Carry on.
Edit: I didn’t get any reading in over the weekend, but I am still jazzed about your new book.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
CaseyL
The most amazing book I’ve ever read about large numbers of people disappearing is The Disappearance by Philip Wylie. It’s about men and women disappearing from one another, en masse, so there are essentially two parallel worlds: one without men, and one without women.
It’s an old book – came out in the 50s – and is, by today’s standards, sexist. By the standards of the 1950s it was shocking and revolutionary. I wince hard at some of the clunkers, but love the story, the world-building, and its commentary on the (American*) world-as-it-was.
*Mostly American. A chapter where Soviet naval women arrive in New York aboard a battleship and are met by a delegation of American women is a lot of fun.
It’s much too dated to make a movie or TV mini-series from. Updating it would lose most of the story. But it’s a wonderful read, if you keep in mind when it was written.
SixStringFanatic
@SixStringFanatic: Couldn’t possibly be true anyway. The foundations for Giants Stadium were poured before Jimmy Hoffa was croaked.
Elizabelle
From Richmond, VA: Two open carry advocates planned a July 4th open carry rally in Carytown, an eclectic and walkable retail/cafes city neighborhood. Publicized it heavily over Facebook.
They were the only two to show. And now one of the organizers is getting dissed on his own Facebook page:
Roger Moore
@Origuy:
I read a book in a similar vein called The Death of Kings which is about the death (and related medical history) of the monarchs of England. I hope they come up with a new edition now that Richard III’s remains have been found.
WaterGirl
@ranchandsyrup: Then why is it called a boner? Sorry, I giggled when I read what you wrote, and I couldn’t resist asking the obvious.
Amir Khalid
@BethanyAnne:
I’m amazed that it’s at all legal to sell smokestack kits, when their sole purpose is surely to make pickup trucks emit smoke in quantities that can’t be permissible.
ranchandsyrup
@WaterGirl: Heh. That’s what I said! Doc giggled a bit too.
BGinCHI
@tesslibrarian: You have authors right here in these threads!
http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/fiction02/when-lilacs-last-in-the-dooryard-bloomed-by-bradley-greenburg/
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
As I understand, males in most other primate species have an actual bone in there, but we humans don’t.
scav
@Roger Moore: Speaking of dead Princes with bad reps, they apparently found a letter of the Black Prince that is encouraging rethinks. Propaganda and exaggeration, old old hobbies on multiple conflicting fronts.
Red Apple Smokes
Open thread? I’m currently working my way through Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. It’s amazing. Aside from the references to the Soviet Union, this book could have been written yesterday and it would feel just as relevant. Does anyone have a suggestion for something similar that I could tackle next?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Spending five grand to annoy people, and increasing your own gas costs. Wingers is sarmt.
I guess a number sticker that says “My penis is NOT SMALL!” would be cheaper, but a little on the nose, as they say.
TXkid
@WaterGirl: I’m jealous. Mom had a tart cherry tree when I was a wee lad. One dessert staple was cherry peach pie and cobbler. Such a delicious combination. Nowadays, I resort to buying the canned cherries in the baking aisles of the supermarket as there is rarely another alternative.
BethanyAnne
@⚽️ Martin: Yep. Surprised I haven’t seen these idjits in Texas.
PurpleGirl
@CarolDuhart2: Have you read any of Fred Clark’s exegesis on Left Behind? His weekly installments went on for five years (IIRC), a few pages at a time. He asked questions like that. He began on the second book but I haven’t followed that as a did the first book. I do like his other comments on contemporary religion and history.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Freedom! Bet you can’t buy one of those in KL, sucker.
BethanyAnne
@Karen in GA: Ooo, Christopher Eccleston. I loved him in “Revenger’s Tragedy” – it’s got Eddie Izzard, too.
Calouste
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think there was much new discovered when Richard III’s remains were found. Things were pretty much as suspected or reported by contemporaries.
catclub
@CaseyL: The City and The City sounds a little similar.
It is newer. [not necessarily better]
bemused
I had never heard of rolling coal until today reading about it at Business Insider and several other sites. Spending up to $5,000 to convert your truck to belch soot out of the tailpipe at people riding bicycles, driving a Prius or walking is bonehead nuts. Obsession with pissing off liberals can get expensive.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Are you all actually seeing these things on the roads, though? I’m aware it’s het up the intranets. I wonder how much it’s out there in “real life” (i.e. more than 3-4 asswipes looking for their 15 mins of fame).
I think this driver would be ticketed in Virginia. I think cops can ticket for excessive exhaust.
Bob In Portland
Don’t read this. It’s probably not what you already believe.
Manyakitty
@TXkid: Have you tried frozen cherries? Inquiring minds…
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A small price to pay to demonstrate Cleek’s Law.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
When I see links like “rolling coal” all of a sudden, I wonder if it’s an attempt to troll people willing to believe the worst about wingnuts.
Which is not to say that wingnuts don’t do some out there stuff.
Couldn’t you just call this “rolling dolt”?
scav
@BethanyAnne: For that matter, Chris Eccleston is in Second Coming where he’s playing yet another slightly different role in the whole end-times scenario.
PurpleGirl
@bemused: Liberal/Progressive/Democratic Derangement Syndrome; it needs to be written up and put into the next edition of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
Roger Moore
@bemused:
I suspect it’s something that only a handful of people are dumb enough to do. A good thing to remember about business news is that it’s mostly warmed-over press releases. I would guess that the garage that does “rolling coal” conversions put out a press release or two that got repeated by the business press wurlitzer.
Karen in GA
@BethanyAnne: What a beautiful mess of a film.
ETA: I second the Second Coming recommendation. “Heaven is empty, and hell is bursting at the seams.”
SixStringFanatic
@Elizabelle: Yes, I have seen 2 or 3 of these in Central Indiana within the last couple of months. I was dumbstruck at the first one I saw, wondering who the hell would do something so stupid. Didn’t realize there was ideological idiocy behind it but I probably should have guessed.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Don’t read this. It’s probably not what you already believe.
Elizabelle
@SixStringFanatic:
OMG. Indiana’s spawning some interesting behavior lately.
Lucky for the Hoosier state, those “We are the Millers” jokers moved away and shot up cops and a Wal-Mart in Las Vegas. After communing at the Bundy Ranch.
(PS: I say this one generation removed from being a Hoosier, mind you.)
bemused
@PurpleGirl:
Yes but FUBAR would be the most accurate term.
Spike
@WaterGirl:
She’s amazing. I love how she can make one clone impersonating another distinct from either.
bemused
@Roger Moore:
I’ve lived in rural MN all my life and haven’t seen one yet but there’s sure to be a few somewhere in the state. One video I saw was in Wisc but it looked like their little rolling coal caravan was moving on country roads.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Where did you learn to speak Ukrainian? Did your folks come here under Operation Paperclip or the Crusade For Freedom?
Bob In Portland
This.
Same BS. Climb on board.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: You need new material, Bob.
Bob In Portland
You may have forgotten about this.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: If you can recycle fascism why can’t people recycle antifascism?
Seventy years of history. Gin, I understand that it must be hard to be self-respecting when you align yourself to neo-Nazis, but racial purity and other myths should get you over the rough spots.
Hey, and it only took the Ukrainian military three months to take back a city of 100,000. Still time for you to volunteer and go over there and set fire to a building or two.
By the way, how did you learn to speak Ukrainian? It’s something that’s both very dear to you and yet something you don’t want to talk about. Ukrainian is generally not offered as an alternative to Spanish in high schools. Did you learn it in a community center? From parents and grandparents?
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Sorry, didn’t catch your views on the Fishman article. Is he right or wrong?
TXkid
@Manyakitty: I have not. The grocery store only seem to carry sweet cherries in the frozen section where I am. These tend not to survive the baking process with their flavor intact.
ranchandsyrup
Bob in Pieland
WaterGirl
@Spike:
YES! I have noticed that, too, she really is amazing.
(Late coming back to the thread – I actually had to do some work!)
Did you watch the season finale? I had to watch the dance scene several times.
Tim C.
Since jokes were requested… hear about the incident where an explosive device was planted in a male cow? It was abominable.
Bob In Portland
@Bob In Portland: Send me a link to your Fishman article and I’ll give it a full critique… right after you tell me how you learned Ukrainian. Seems to me if you are a proud ethnic Ukrainian you’d be glad to share your acquisition of the language. Maybe you’re not that proud.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Link is right up in #93. Read it, or don’t.
I can’t recall ever mentioning anything here about my ethnic or religious background.
Bob In Portland
@ranchandsyrup: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Venezuela have nothing to do with petroleum. Really, it’s about women not having to wear burqas, it’s about bad men like Saddam, bin Laden, Assad, Ghadaffi, whoever that guy was in Serbia. It’s about bad guys like Ho Chi Minh and Allende.
Believe me, you will not notice that America’s involvement in Ukraine has anything to do with the Russian pipelines supplying natural gas to Europe. But Putin’s a bad man, so we are right to destabilize Ukraine. That’ll teach ’em.
ranchandsyrup, you’re a little slow on the uptake, aren’t you?
gene108
NEA wants Duncan to resign
Obama 100% backs Duncan. He tapped him to be Sec of Ed after Duncan’s less than stellar stint of Super Intendant of Chicago Public Schools.
I’m not sure how this effects the Hillary-Barack debate about, who is he better Democrat, but Bill Clinton was the last President we had, who went to public schools for K-12. Hillary also went to public schools.
Barack went to private schools.
Maybe that is one reason President Obama has not been a stronger supporter of public schools.
cckids
@Original Lee: I was surprised at “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, good small movie.
cckids
@PurpleGirl:
Their ad with the old ladies & “posting my photos to my wall”, and “I unfriend you” still cracks me up, because it reminds me so much of conversations with my MIL. “That’s not how it works! That’s not how ANY OF THIS WORKS!”
Been there.
WaterGirl
@BGinCHI: You are surely long gone by now, but I just read the book review you linked to. I felt like she really captured the tone of what I have read of your book so far. I can’t imagine what it’s like to read a glowing book review for a book you have written, and a first book, at that. How wonderful to have your book be so well received!
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: That’s right. You said you read Ukrainian many times here, though, and you refuse to mention how you acquired this language. If you have a Ukrainian background you might have acquired it from relatives. Maybe you don’t. If you work in foreign services you might learn it. I bet there are classes of State Department people learning it to lend a helping hand over there right now. Does the Defense Language Institute teach it? I bet Chevron and Exxon are looking for people who speak it. Those are some reasons why someone would learn Ukrainian. Why do you speak Ukrainian? Half of Ukraine doesn’t even speak it. People here have accused me of being a propagandist for Russia (how absurd) but if I were I’d probably have learned to read Ukrainian too. So what’s your connection to the Ukrainian language and why are you afraid to share how you learned it?
As for the Fishman article, it appears to be a cheery article written about the bright future for Jews in Kiev wrapped up in that false flag about getting Jews to report to authorities in eastern Ukraine back in April, which was proven to be a hoax three months ago. I tried to find a bio of David E. Fishman but couldn’t. Maybe he studied Ukrainian in college.
So maybe the same people who used Radio Free Europe to broadcast anti-Semitic diatribes into Ukraine in the fifties and sixties, and whose fathers killed Jews in the forties, are now cool with Jews in Ukraine. That’s just great.
You know, the only reason that the fascists in Ukraine even participated in the Holocaust was because fascism works at two levels. You understand fascism, right? At one level there are oligarchs who run things, mostly to their own interest and benefit and not for the average person in the streets. How do you get the average person to back fascism? You blame the inadequacies of your economic system on the outer threat. The “other”. Jews have historically been the other. When you want an unequal society with you at the top then fascism’s your best friend. It’s no mistake that McCain was onstage hugging Ukrainian fascists last fall and it’s no mistake that the political party in the US that is most closely aligned to our oligarchs is Republican and they like to blame immigrants, minorities and, yes, sometimes even Jews.
While there are still fascists in Kiev who blame Ukraine’s problems on the “Muscovite-Jew mafia”, there are plenty more who just blame Russia, and as a corollary the people in Ukraine who speak Russian. The first language of people in Donetsk is Russian. 95% of the people there speak Russian. It would be difficult for you to find someone for you to talk Ukrainian with in Donetsk.
That’s why the war in eastern Ukraine can’t win. There are only so many Russian-speaking women and children you can kill for Ukrainian ethnic purity. Only so many ditches you can fill with bodies. And just like in El Salvador, eventually someone comes along and digs up the skeletons.
Bob In Portland
I am being blocked from editing my own comment. John Cole, is that you? It’s weirdly numbered too. It should be comment #114 but it has 5 next to it. I guess there are some things too dangerous to say here.
Betty Cracker
@Bob In Portland: WordPress is notoriously wonky — people bitch about not being able to edit their comments all fucking day! And trust me, if someone wants to promote the agenda of the Ukrainian government, they’d make you a front-pager instead of stealthily blocking your edit capabilities. Seriously, dude, you are one of the worst advocates for your stated cause I’ve ever seen.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Finally! Now I get it – you’re a parody. Don’t know why I haven’t seen it until now.
His bio is quite literally the *first* hit in Google when you enter David Fishman Jewish Theological Seminary.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Bob can’t use Google, it’s a neo-nazi site.
Don’t you know anything?
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I’ve had lots of comments disappear here in the last couple of months. So maybe it is just WordPress.
As far as being an advocate for the Ukrainian government, boy, you might read a little more closely. I’m an advocate of the United States stopping its damned wars for oil profits.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: No, not the bio of himself that he himself wrote. An actual bio.
Perhaps you want to share why you read Ukrainian.
Manyakitty
@TXkid: I have some tart cherries in my freezer. Guess it’s time to thaw them out and see what kind of pie they’ll become.
Betty Cracker
@Bob In Portland: Since you seem to accuse anyone who doesn’t agree with you of being objectively pro-fascist, I assumed you meant Cole must be personally blocking your editing capabilities to prop up the Ukrainian government. Whatever. My comment stands: Advocacy — YOU SUCK AT IT!
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: I guess my position isn’t one of advocacy. It’s of Americans noticing the war we’re sliding into and why and the results of that war.
I know that many of my comments are answered by some wit suggesting that I have sex with Mr. Putin. I don’t care so much about Putin, but for the sake of world peace it is not good that the US has created a fascist state in Ukraine that is an enemy of Russia. That’s not to say that America will be landing troops there. They’ve spent billions on this over the years. This is not unlike what is happening in Syria/Iraq, although Ukraine has a very thin veneer of democracy if you don’t look too closely at the coup.
What is the US’s purpose for installing an anti-Russian government in Kiev, and how will the IMF austerity affect most Ukrainians? There is an old song by Fela called “Sorrow, Tears and Blood” about the results of fascism in his home country of Nigeria. One thing that should be noted about our foreign policy over the last fifty years is that often wrecking a country is better than allowing it to thrive with our economic enemies, like Russia.
As far as me accusing everyone of loving fascism, you, I presume you have noted how often I’ve been accused of being a Russian troll paid for by the Kremlin. It seems to go both ways. I find that Gin & Tonic, if he indeed knows how to read Ukrainian, has a greater connection than he lets us see here, but that’s because I know from decades of reading up on the US’s involvement with fascist groups in Europe. After WWII the US wholesale absorbed Nazi spy networks in order to battle the then Soviet Union. The US also imported Nazi and fascist war criminals into the US, and worked to put them in positions of leadership in ethnic communities. There is no doubt about it, though most Americans remain ignorant to it or are too intellectually afraid of facing it.
I’ve asked repeatedly what the reasons for invading Iraq and Afghanistan and continuing to isolate Iran are. Iraq, we were told, had a bad man (Saddam) with weapons of mass destruction. We know we went to war on a lie. I presumed that people here at Balloon Juice, somewhat liberal, would be opposed to going to war on a lie but I know that John was formerly a Republican ass, so I’m not sure about the current political profile of all people here at Balloon Juice.
Invading Afghanistan to capture bin Laden was absurd, but then staying for a decade after he slipped over the border should have given some liberals here a clue that that wasn’t the real reason for it. If you dial back to the summer of 2001 you would have read that the US and the Taliban had agreed to a pipeline across the country which would supply central Asian oil and gas to the countries on the Indian Ocean. That’s lots of profit, but in order for you to believe it you have to acknowledge how much our foreign policy has be formed to serve the interest of our corporations, especially our energy corporations. And like I say, destruction and chaos is better than losing a strategic location to an enemy. Iran have had plans for a pipeline parallel to the Afghan one, which again puts Iran as an oil competitor to the US.
Iran, Iraq and Syria had an agreement to run another pipeline through those three countries to the Mediterranean, which would have put Southern Europe more directly connected to Shia energy. Obviously, the House of Saud doesn’t want that.
If the US were worried about nuclear weapons in Iran they should be worried about the hundreds of nukes that Israel has, that Pakistan has, that India has. Nukes are all over the place in the Middle East. No, Iran is “sanctioned” to keep their oil off the market.
Why? Well, when oil is off the market the remainder of the oil supply becomes more valuable.
What runs across Ukraine? Russian gas pipelines. You may have noticed the invisible hand of American statesmanship trying to block Russia’s South Stream pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine altogether. That is the tell. The US wants to break Russia’s petrol trade with Europe, either by having a hostile nation not allow gas flow through Ukraine or by having the gas lines sabotaged during this ongoing civil war. It would damage Russia’s economy, making it easier to eventually absorb.
So the US did not promote the fascist coup in Ukraine to necessarily have a fascist government there. We’ve used plenty of fascists in the past. the Thieu Family in Vietnam had been Japanese collaborators during WWII. The same with elements of the Korean government post-WWII. El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia. You know the list. So it should not surprise us that the US would cooperate with fascists in Ukraine. And if you have read the history of American involvement in that region during the Cold War you would have known our long history with fascists there. There are benefits to profit moreso in a fascist country than in a democratic one where decisions must take citizens into account.
You may not know how fascism works on two levels, the circus of war for the hoi polloi and profits for the rich. So the people in Maidan who march for Stepan Bandera and the purity of the Ukraine race are the intellectual descendants of the people who killed lots of Jews, ethnic Russians, Poles et al during Germany’s occupation. Some people here refuse to believe that we actually have a history of cooperation with fascists around the world, but as observed above we do. You might say that the US has slowly devolved into a fascist state, where oligarchs rule and profit and the rest of us use up our resentment and anger against bad men abroad and targeted groups here at home.
There was some thought early on that the US eyed Crimea as a base to project military power on that huge sink of petrol in Central Asia. Consider it an alternative to the pipeline across Afghanistan. Once Russia seized Crimea that pretty much left the US without the deep sea port (although they can build airfields and such in western Ukraine). But there can still be victory by injuring Russia’s connection to Europe.
That means that the US doesn’t give a shit about Ukraine and racial purity. Since it just signed IMF austerity demands it’s pretty clear that for the short run Ukraine’s economy will be more like Greece’s. I could go into detail as to why both the east and west of Ukraine will suffer economically (the west because there is little manufacturing and large corporations are already buying up farmland, which will free the Ukrainians to work in German slaughterhouses or bussing tables elsewhere in Europe; the east which has more of a manufacturing base, is dependent on trade with Russia and a victory by the current government would certainly shut that down). So if Gin & Tonic is a descendant of Ukrainians imported here after WWII he will get more angry and blame Russia more. If he is merely an employee of some US agency that needs Ukrainian speakers then it’s not such a big deal.
Would the average American benefit by our energy companies getting a bigger slice of Central Asian oil? No, not at all. We are the cannon fodder, the taxable incomes. But we get to see the Blue Angels fly over our stadia during football season.
The biggest thing to recognize is that US foreign policy is not for the benefit of the average American. It is for the benefit of the oligarchs. It does bother me that people who can express themselves intelligently on other subjects seem to be absolutely blind as to what keeps happening over and over. Were the death squads in El Salvador an accident? No, they were trained at the School of the Americas. I won’t be surprised when it turns out that ISIS was armed and trained by our allies (House of Saud). So it looks like the US is there to overthrow Iraq again, this time without boots on the ground.
So why am I concerned about the murder and rampage that the US’s insinuation into Ukraine has brought? I care about America. The question is why you and the majority of others here don’t see it.
I read on a foreign blog a few months ago that America’s liberals are the last to notice America’s moves in foreign policy. It certainly takes them a long time to notice what’s in front of their noses. There is a belief that when our guy is in the White House that there must be some good reason for our interventions. That fact is that, no matter which party, our foreign policy has been beyond the White House for fifty years. Zbigniew B. was looking for a way to run a pipeline through Afghanistan for decades prior to the Bush II era.
I hope that explains my position to you, and my continued disappointment with the people here at Balloon Juice. I think the poster in the foreign blog was right.