Why, I'd say that's a mighty fine conspiracy theory you have there, @TheRickWilson! https://t.co/Zzf05UR276
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) August 22, 2015
… every campaign looks like it’s ripe for ratfvcking!
Related, per The Hill:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is on high alert for a possible undercover sting, after several women reportedly tried to bait volunteers into breaking federal election law, according to Time…
Clinton officials identified one of the women as Laura Loomer, who filmed a video earlier this year that appears to show a college official backing a charity to support the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The women presented themselves with the names Allison Holmes, Jess Koski and Jess Jones, according to the Clinton campaign. All used the same phone number, which is registered to the University of Minnesota-based Students for a Conservative Voice.
According to the report, their actions are similar to those of Project Veritas, a conservative group led by James O’Keefe that has carried out stings on liberal groups and media outlets in the past…
That’s the problem with encouraging bold “grass roots” conservakiddies to gin up their own little projects — a real professional would know better than to waste perfectly good material before Labor Day, and a year in advance of the election at that. Now every halfbright Objectivist/Evangelical with a hankering for a career in politics believes the way to make themselves noticed is to emulate James O’Keefe. Problem is, targeting cynical political professionals, rather than openhearted inclusive dogooders like ACORN staffers, is the difference between shooting deer in a park and chasing wolves in the outback… you’ll have some successes, if you bring enough firepower and hire the right guides, but you’ll also spend a lot of time getting dirty and bug-bit without anything to show for it.
BillinGlendaleCA
You might also get eaten by the wolves.
ETA: (Looks over at the girls, they seem peaceful.)
The Republic of Stupidity
Chisel?
Still too refined of an instrument…
More like a 9 lb sh*t hammer…
Anoniminous
The more these kiddies run around with their little cameras, editing and producing their stupid little videos, uploading the result to YouTube, the less anybody is going to care.
burnspbesq
Follow the money. Would be really interesting to see who is funding this nonsense. My bet would be a Macau triad that owes Sheldon Adelson a favor.
Amir Khalid
You really need a hyphen in there. I had a confusing moment trying to figure out what a “dog ooder” was.
NonyNony
@burnspbesq:
I agree. College Republican organizations were growing young ratfuckers back when I’m in college and it seems that they’ve actually gotten worse over the years. I actually do wonder if this is the same kind of dynamic as Citizen’s United is having on presidential candidates – lots of billionaires spreading their money around to these youth organizations hoping to grow the next Lee Atwater or Karl Rove.
dmsilev
Truly a set of James Bonds for the modern era.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
It’s sort of like an “offog,” only different.
Snarki, child of Loki
Just remember: when some folks show up and start asking weird questions and acting all twitchy? Especially if you recognize O’Keefe in ‘disguise’?
Tase ’em good. Then have security toss ’em out.
burnspbesq
I’m prepared to assume this is real, because Drum is pretty reliable–and If it is, holy shit.
motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/peek-inside-anti-immigrant-id
Anoniminous
@efgoldman:
At least we don’t have the DLC hanging around, scared of taking a stand. On anything.
The nice thing is the kiddies are pooping in the media Infotainment pool. It’s going to be hard for the Usual Suspects to do their Usual Thing when they’ve been “scooped” (sic) by some pimply 23 year old.
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
@dmsilev:
I don’t think there’s a money trail to follow. This is most likely just dumb kids who haven’t learned to think twice about cheating.
SFAW
Because I am generally a mean prick, and because today has not been in my Top Ten of All Time, my initial thought is to send a few of the largest, meanest, and most-liberal Golden Gophers to the office of said group, and “explain” to those anti-American little fucks the error of their ways. Preferably with axe handles, or perhaps a Kirby-Puckett-autographed Louisville Slugger. Until they beg for their mommies.
Anoniminous
@Amir Khalid:
Possibly our esteemed Front Pager Ms. Laurie (noted and famed across the InterTubes) meant “dog-ogler?” ‘Twould fit with another major theme of this blog.
@SFAW:
AND, ladies and gentlemen, the Eric Frank Russell Prize has been won.
NonyNony
@burnspbesq:
Well, he’s citing the NY Times and if they’re misquoting Jim Sherota, 53, who works for a landscaping company then they’ll likely find themselves at the end of a lawsuit. Because if they don’t have evidence of him saying that that could be one hell of a defamation lawsuit right there. So I’d bank on the quote being genuine unless we hear some anger coming from Jim Sherota, 53 about him being misquoted by that damn liberal media.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Relative to this, and to my comment @14, perhaps they can combine efforts? Tell that “patriot” Jim Sherota that the little fucks at the Students for a Conservative Voice are actually Messicans trying to get in via Canada.
Hal
@burnspbesq: It’s real. I was curious so I looked up the name on Facebook, and found some middle aged white guy with pics of motorcycles and guns. Also hilarious, a prediction that Romney was going to win 2012 in a landslide. Don’t know if it’s the same guy, but there seemed to be plenty of similarities.
SFAW
@Anoniminous:
I am chagrined to say that I had forgotten who the author was. Thanks very much. Of course, being of advanced age, I will promptly forget – again – the name of …. of … of … whoever he was.
ETA: And, of course, “offog” ties in with the whole dog theme. But now I can’t remember if I intended that.
Tree With Water
“High alert”.
Meryl Streep said she once lost her temper and intensely vented at her children, only to be disarmed when they all chimed up in unison, “oooh, how dramatic”.
That is my reaction to this story.
BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: How long have you been living in CA? Were you around for the Prop. 187 election? This surprises me not one bit.
Tripod
O’Qeefe is small potatoes. The Donald OTOH, may make the shortlist of greatest rat fucks in American political history.
SFAW
@Hal:
Does he happen to look anything like Dean Chambers?
sigaba
Trump is un-oppoable; scandals presuppose that the target has shame.
The Trump response to any oppo research is “How dare you attack me when you really oppose my classy yooge ideas that everybody knows are the best!” And all the twits voting for him will say “I don’t care what he’s done because he’s the only person who’s willing to say what has to be done!” He could literally be paying people in an office in Ohio to steal candy from babies, it wouldn’t matter. On the idealist/realist axis his appeal is pretty much 100% idealist, which means who he is and what he’s done is immaterial to his appeal.
Anything short of a felony will have zero effect — his entire candidacy is “vote for me and I will give you what you want, my actual personality, beliefs and character are redundant, and anyone that talks about me is just avoiding ‘the issues.'”
The parallels and projection of what conservatives think of Obama is obvious. A lot of people simply believe that politics is a completely transactional zero-sum process where you vote for the ballot line occupant who promises what you want, and a politician’s actual beliefs and being are meaningless; elected officeholders are just supposed to be conduits for Heritage Action and Club for Growth (or Acorn or George Soros) to submit laws through, while simultaneously being above graft–they want politicians to be independent, and they judge their independence by how slavishly they adhere to the agenda. So of course Obama was buying votes with welfare and Obamaphones, why else would anyone vote for him? Conservatives routinely sell their votes for a lower tax rate or abortion restrictions, this is just how it’s supposed to work, according to the way some people think.
So naturally Trump is the perfect candidate, because he can make promises with complete freedom of action, while, in person, remaining basically a cypher. It’s all for sale, he ain’t buying donations, he’s just in the market for votes.
Anoniminous
@SFAW:
Oh shush or the Young Uns ’round here will know we’re all old and brain dead. Instead of merely suspecting it.
SFAW
@Anoniminous:
What? Could you type louder? My hearing aid batteries died.
Actually, don’t. I can’t stand shouting. (Unless I’m the one doing it, of course.)
MazeDancer
Rachel Maddow gushed last night about Adam Edelen, a Democrat in Kentucky who is running for Kentucky State Auditor. She was saying he’s the best she’s seen on the stump since Clinton, Richards, or Edwards (quote “before he became a terrifying creep”). And she played a clip.
Dang, that boy can preach. He was fired up, ready to go, and credibly quoting Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as being pro-health insurance for the poor.
He’s frat guy/anchorman, blow-dryed white, but that’s likely an asset in parts of KY. So I was uplifted for a moment that there is new blood on the Dem Bench. Especially in Southern territory.
Rachel says he’s running against Rand next year. And the Paulistas are gunning for him already. But indicted aide who was supposed to do the job ain’t there no more.
debbie
@Snarki, child of Loki:
How perfect would that be, seeing O’Keefe flopping on the floor like a dying fish!
Germy Shoemangler
@MazeDancer: He says Mitch McConnell pretends he was born in a log cabin; Rand Paul pretends he was born in a manger.
shell
Hearing aid? Im still using an ear trumpet.
Peale
@NonyNony: having gone to college and been a member of the young democrat equivalent to the republicans at a time when they were busy using that to winnow down to the true believers while the Dems were using theirs to teach “good civics lessons” which meant “keeping hippies from ruining everything again”, I’m not surprised that we have trouble now finding true believers…or for that matter, a decent rat fucking counterattack. The Right has to invent conspiracies just to feel like they have competition.
debbie
Can’t believe there are people who make Joe Arpaio look less extreme:
esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37301/iowa-radio-host-mickelson-okay-with-bringing-back-sla…
goblue72
@SFAW: Its not just that one guy. The NY Times has a video up on its homepage “The Keys to Trump’s Appeal”. I recommend watching it.
The audience they show at his rally is almost entirely white and north of age 50. Choice quotes from people interviewed (to paraphrase) are statements like “He’s refreshing and he says everything that all of us want to say. But because we have to be political correct we can’t say it” and “He says what all the other candidate’s don’t have the guts to say” and “That immigration proposal, 4-5 pages, very easy to read, made a lot of sense.”
There was a kid in the audience that asked “I went on your website and only saw your immigration proposal. Can you speak to any other plans you have?” Trump’s response “I think the press wants to see more of these ‘policies’ than the people do.”
There you have it – Trump’s appeal is almost entirely built on xenophobic racism about Latinos (he’s not proposing building a wall next to Canada). And his audience is almost entirely composed of older racist whites who have thought these things all along but wouldn’t say so in public. The hoods are finally off and they are more than happy to revel in it.
If I was a POC, I’d start buying guns at this point.
goblue72
Comment stuck in moderation about Trump. What are the FYWP bad words currently?
NotMax
Open Thread, so…
Each time I view it, marvel anew at the acuity of Maximilian Schell’s performance in Judgment at Nuremberg.
Couldn’t imagine trying to see that film interrupted by commercial breaks on a non-TCM channel
sigaba
@efgoldman:
College kids are plentiful, motivated, and if they screw up and commit a felony they’re expendable.
As to wether they are hoping to grow the next Lee Atwater, count me as doubtful, since this assumes that Foster Freiss and the Kochs give a damn about the future, of the conservative movement or anything else…
MazeDancer
@Germy Shoemangler:
Love that quote. Mr. Edelen has some skillz, for sure.
The full quote attacking Republicans for threatening to take health care away from thousands of low-income, deserving people in Kentucky was “maybe they should put down the books of Ayn Rand and pick up the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John”.
Jesse Benton was sent to stop Edelen now, during this Auditor race, so that Rand wouldn’t have to face him next year. But the inconvenient truth of getting indicted means Jesse can’t do that job.
If the clip of Adam Edelen on the stump that Rachel played is real, Rand should be plenty worried. And we should all be smiling. (Knocking wood for real Dems to knock off as many GOP as possible.)
NonyNony
@sigaba:
Yes. This is all true.
Also – the idea that the “liberal media” is sitting on oppo research that would “sink” Trump because they want him to destroy the GOP first before dropping it is hilarious. The press has already published a number of things that would be embarrassing enough for a normal GOP candidate to have to drop out of the race – the accusations from his ex-wife during their divorce proceedings, his verbal attack on John McCain’s status as a prisoner of war, the conversation he had with Bill Clinton before getting into the race, honestly repeating every word that has come out of Trump’s mouth since he announced he was running – none of it has made a dent. It’s all just given Trump more fodder to be the guy that is “fighting back” against the “liberal media” and the “RINOs” that want to smear him and keep him from winning.
The thing is – Trump’s support is shallow. If there was a single strong candidate on the GOP bench that could sway the moderates that want to vote for someone that will enact hateful policies without actually being so loud and obvious about what he’s doing, that candidate would have Trump beat. Because the ugly mouthbreathers that make up his support are likely only roughly 1/3 of the party voting base (I suggest 27% +/- 5%) – with some of them supporting Ted Cruz, that’s why his support has flatlined to where he’s in the lead, but not growing much. This would be far more obvious if there were fewer “serious” candidates in the clown car, or if any of the five or so “serious” candidates were actually strong enough personality-wise to distinguish themselves from the other four or so non-entities that make up the “serious” branch this cycle.
(I mean really – Kasich has some personality but it’s mostly “grumpy old fart”. Jeb! and Walker seem like almost interchangeable people. Rubio puts me to sleep when he talks, but at least he isn’t a “grumpy old fart” – so I can see why some folks seem to think he’s got the best shot once Trump flames out. And Fiorina? I mean the fact that some of the voters who belong to the “serious” branch of the GOP looked at her debate performance and thought “hey, she’s interesting” just shows how terrible the rest of the “serious” candidates are this cycle.)
rikyrah
there is a reason that stories like this are spilling out
…………………
Israel Came Close to Attacking Iran, Ex-Defense Minister Says
By JODI RUDOREN
AUG. 21, 2015
JERUSALEM — A former Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, revealed new details to his biographers about how close Israel came to strikingIran’s military facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and why it did not despite his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to do so, according to interview excerpts aired on Israeli television Friday night.
Mr. Barak, who also previously served as Israel’s prime minister, said that he and Mr. Netanyahu were ready to attack Iran each year but that in 2010, the military chief of staff said Israel lacked the “operational capability”; in 2011, two key ministers waffled at the last minute; and in 2012, the timing did not work out because of a joint United States-Israel military exercise and visit by the American defense secretary. He noted that the two ministers who balked in 2011, Moshe Yaalon and Yuval Steinitz, “are the most militant about attacking Iran” today.
The interview excerpts were aired by Israel’s Channel 2, which stressed that Mr. Barak had sought to prevent them from being broadcast, but that they had been approved by Israel’s military censor. Reached late Friday by telephone, Mr. Barak confirmed that the recordings were authentic but said he had provided the information on background to the authors, Ilan Kfir and Danny Dor, whose book, “Barak: The Wars of My Life,” came out this week in Hebrew.
nytimes.com/2015/08/22/world/middleeast/israel-came-close-to-attacking-iran-ex-defense-minister-says…
sigaba
@NotMax: Shatner cracks me up in that movie — it’s gotta be Kramer’s strongest movie, though they’re all pretty annoying. I think Kael once pointed out that Stanley Kramer didn’t direct movies, he created audiovisual aids for film critics that wanted an excuse to write about social issues, or wanted to be able to write about “Important” films without having to drag their readership to a film that might be, perish the though, obscure.
rikyrah
I’ll say it again..
Trump has been out in the public eye for years. All the nasty about him is in print or on video. It’s already out there. Those that support him – DO NOT CARE.
Unless you come out with proof that he’s been molesting children…you have nothing on Trump. Nothing.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: or to paraphrase Hunter Thompson…. “a ball of tar and feathers on a prison bus.”
Ken
@SFAW: No, no. First pick your favorite vile topic, call it X. Could be prostitution, opium dens, cockfighting, whatever.
Then you go ask them about X, so you can record them saying, “No, the Campus Young Republicans has nothing to do with X.”
Then you go back to the studio fake up a scene with X going on, shot through an open door. Be sure to match the wall color and put a “Campus Young Republicans – Private” sign on the door.
Finally you edit together the footage, so it looks like they’re one long take – you asked about X, they denied it, you turned and right there in the next room it was going on.
That’s how you O’Keefe someone.
Soylent Green
@efgoldman: President Obama did not fire Shirley Sherrod.
Tom Vilsack did that, and his embarrassment after making such an unforced blunder led to those of us who work for his department (the USDA) being subjected to a never-ending stream of departmental initiatives about diversity and inclusion.
raven
@NotMax: A German prof at Georgia actually devised the translation system used there and in the UN. He was in Germany until just before the war started and Germans didn’t believe he wasn’t German because his speech was so good. So what did they do with him during the war? He was a destroyer captain in the Pacific!!!
sigaba
@Ken: I wish it was that complicated, many of the videos just take the hidden footage and dub dialogue over the top. The “hidden camera” footage is always at some weird angle where you can’t see people’s lips, so it basically works.
Botsplainer
@MazeDancer:
Adam Edelen’s the real deal New Deal southern progressive on economics – it’s a bright spot in what’s likely to be an ugly year for Kentucky Democrats.
There was a scary “Gott Mit Uns” rally against gay marriage in front of the state Capitol today.
SFAW
@shell:
I’m waiting for someone to go all Yorkshireman on you/me: “Ear trumpet? Paradise! In my day, we had to hollow out two pointed sticks …” etc.
raven
@NotMax: A.G Steer
In 1945 he was appointed Chief of the Interpreters and Translators of the Nuremberg trials in Germany. Steer directed a staff of 200 translators during the year-long judicial proceedings and instituted the process of simultaneous translation that is employed today at the United Nations
Mike in NC
@NotMax: Watching the movie right now. Pre-Star Trek William Shatner is the sole surviving cast member, per IMDb.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
You sound like someone who might like Mark Harris’s Pictures At A Revolution:
goodreads.com/book/show/2092154.Pictures_at_a_Revolution
Harris is also the author of the terrific Five Came Back, about the Hollywood directors who went off to WWII. His next book is supposed to be about Mike Nichols, which might have some interesting insider stuff because Harris is married to Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer-winning playwright of Angels in America, which was directed by Nichols.
raven
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Sam Fuller?
SFAW
@Ken:
My way takes less time, is more satisfying, and is less likely to be ignored by the target audience. (Where “target audience” is defined as those O’Queefe-wannabes who still think pulling that shit is a good idea.)
Not saying your way is a bad idea, of course. It’s just that a lot of things can go wrong with it, and then we have to do it my way anyway.
SatanicPanic
@NonyNony: I wonder if they won’t fall in line behind Trump though if another clear challenger doesn’t emerge. I mean, these are Republicans. They may not like him a lot, but I highly doubt most of what he’s saying actually offends them.
Anonymous37
I’d say, “Well, Rick Wilson, no one is stopping you from publishing that extraordinarily nasty oppo yourself. Go nuts! I mean, even more nuts than usual.”
Ken
@efgoldman: That’s interesting, because Rove and Atwater always reminded me of a serial killer gone just a little over the edge.
MazeDancer
@Botsplainer:
So sorry to hear about the hater rally. So happy to hear about the authenticity of Mr. Edelen.
Rachel Maddow thought Rand would drop out for Prez today because the KY GOP wouldn’t vote to let him disobey KY law and run for 2 offices at once. (Still cant believe Rubio giving up his Senate seat.)
But according to the AP, if Rand pays for it, the KY GOP is going to let him have a special caucus which means he can keep running for both seats until March.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@raven:
Fuller didn’t become a director until after the war. It’s about the five major Hollywood directors who worked for the government durning the war: John Ford, Frank Capra, George Stevens, John Huston, and William Wyler. Wyler is the guy who directed The Best Years of Our Lives after the war, which co-starred an actual wounded veteran, Harold Russell. Stevens shot the footage of the liberation of Dachau and other concentration camps, and it changed him forever.
NotMax
@sigaba
Met Kramer once, albeit briefly.
But in that very short encounter he came across as one of the most self-satisfied gentlemen I’d ever crossed paths with.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
A great film.
NotMax
@raven
Interesting.
NotMax
@MazeDancer
Privatizing the vote. Perhaps the ultimate libertarian fantasy.
sigaba
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I’ve read both of those, thank you. I had Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in mind. That and Inherit the Wind, which seems really clever the first time you watch it, if you’re 14. And then you realize the movie’s a total stacked deck…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@NotMax:
I have to brag all over again: I got to meet Sidney Poitier last year, and he was the most wonderful guy ever. Seriously. A little frail physically, but still sharp as a tack mentally.
He brought his teenage grandson with him, because when a former member of the board of directors for the Giant Evil Corporation says his grandson is interested in animation and wants to have a look around, everyone says, Yes, sir, Mr. Poitier, sir. His grandson was also wonderful, just the sweetest kid (I can call him that because I’m old enough to be his mother).
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
Have you read the novel Zeroville? The spouse just finished it and can’t stop talking about it.
Raven would love it because there’s a character based on John Milius. ;-)
sigaba
@NotMax: I have worked for many, many movie producers, and, generally, rigorous self-doubt is not one of their core copentencies.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Goodreads link for Zeroville:
goodreads.com/book/show/921569.Zeroville
Matt McIrvin
“Extraordinarily nasty oppo”? Material on Trump that is sufficient to destroy any normal politician has been out in the wide open for decades. What would it be?
scav
@Amir Khalid:
Spoilers! That very well could be a critical plot-point in Doctor Who.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Count me among the extremely envious. Glad to hear that his personality matches the mental image I have of him.
Anoniminous
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
And John Ford filmed and directed “The Battle of Midway” while standing on Midway, during the battle. Not entirely by choice … but … still.
ThresherK
@SFAW: Luxury! Why, we had to have someone shout into the phonautograph, and then, we’d read the sound waves off the paper.
If we were lucky!
sigaba
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I have not read Zeroville, like the father-in-law from Sideways, I’m sorta not into fiction. I’m more interested to see that Margot Kidder is a character; Milius is a blustering phony (John Wayne only WISHED he could be so fake), but I think Easy Riders established that Margot Kidder was there when all the bodies were buried.
I have, however, also met Sidney Poitier, he spoke at my college graduation — at the time I remember he was still “The Honorable Sidney Poitier, Bahamian Ambassador to Japan”. Got to shake his hand and he handed me my diploma, that was about it though :).
SFAW
@ThresherK:
You win.
ETA: Although I’m sure someone will come along and prove me wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: I dare say that if he’s caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, or a dead boy and a live girl, or two live boys and two live girls, the pondscum that constitutes his base would not care.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
Most of the people I get to meet at my job are famous for animation, so most people don’t care that, say, Bruno Bozzetto came by. It was a relief to finally have someone that my family had heard of.
jl
Sitting on oppo research on Trump is like sitting on the phone book. What is there to sit on that hasn’t been aired publicly already? Or hasn’t been used by Trump for marketing himself already?
Germy Shoemangler
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Did you see “The Reluctant Dragon” (the full film, not the cartoon short)?
Some legendary animators show up, as well as Alan Ladd.
Tom Q
@sigaba: Kael also noted of Judgment at Nuremberg that Kramer loudly denounced any person who had the slightest connection to the Nazis, and protected his box office by casting an array of big Hollywood stars, however unsuitable they were for the roles. Kael’s pithy comment was “Most artists try to reject compromise for themselves but understand it in others; Kramer does the exact opposite”.
SatanicPanic
@efgoldman: I don’t know, hadn’t thought of that. Like a Respectable Republican party. I wonder if the party heads aren’t more concerned about how Trump affects lower races than about whether or not he’ll win the WH. If they’re operating in the realm of reality (a big assumption I know), they know they have no chance at the WH with any of the clowns they are currently running. If it looks like Trump’s going to be a huge drag on lower races, maybe they’ll try to run some other guy just to spoil his chances.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t, and I should have. I’ll get around to it one of these days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: I still can’t quite accept that Trump wants the presidency, or even the nomination. I think he’ll figure out some way to climb down (a phony health condition?) and spend the campaign taking potshots and Bush and Clinton (I read this morning he thinks Bush conspired with Carlos Slim to spike his beauty pageant from Univsion)
mclaren
Apropos of nothing in particular, there’s a fascinating interview with Sol Yurick, author of the novel The Warriors (1965) (later made in a famous motion picture), about urban decay & the role of Wall Street and other large financial predators:
bldgblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/conic-sections-interview-with-sol-yurick.html
In other news, the Milgram experiment was repeated with monkeys instead of humans. Turns out the monkeys behaved much more decently toward one another than humans do. Some of the monkeys preferred to starve for up to 2 weeks rather than deliver electric shocks to other monkeys:
thedoctorweighsin.com/fairness-and-altruism/
And here’s a fascinating article on asteroid mining by the father of the field:
airspacemag.com/as-interview/extraterrestrial-commodities-market-180956240/?no-ist
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Not unlike a coworker.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump might be so ignorant he doesn’t understand what he is getting into. I posted his interview with Todd on Meet the Press where he said he didn’t think the Ukrainian crisis was an important issue for the US and he didint’t think we should be involved, and then said that he didn’t care whether Ukraine was a member of NATO or not, it wasn’t an important issue to him.
So…. how do you figure out how somebody like that is going to make decisions?
It’s like Trump says that maybe there is a gas leak in the house across the street, but isn’t sure it is an important issue for him. But it the neighbor comes over and asks if Trump wants to come over with a box of matches and help him look for the leak, Trump says “Sure, whatever, no biggie”. With logic like that, he might do anything.
jl
So, not sure whether this will do any good for getting through the GOP primaries, but just in case. Science has developed a robot that pukes.
Your Saturday Nerdout: The World Now Has A Vomiting Robot. Thanks, Science!
wonkette.com/593206/your-saturday-nerdout-the-world-now-has-a-vomiting-robot-thanks-science
The Lodger
@Amir Khalid: It’s kind of like a cow orker, without as much heavy lifting.
sigaba
@Tom Q: See, I don’t think he was compromising in the slightest, or at least he didn’t think he was compromising. Kramer was an old Columbia hand from the Harry Cohn days, he knew it was important to give people what they wanted and he certainly saw his job, in part, as providing entertainment for a middlebrow audience.
Kael, being an auteurist, just doesn’t understand this mentality, for better or worse.
Eric S.
@efgoldman: I’m at 6! (US Senate race) and still no unicorn.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I herd that the Rule of Hoof is that if you tip them less than 10 percent, that’s an “ork,” and they will be un-mooved by your generosity. (I wonder how much more I can milk this?)
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
No, silly, you tip your waitress.
(I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.)
NotMax
Heh.
What do Prince Charles and John Travolta have in common?
piratedan
@NotMax: same for 12 Angry Men
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
I still think that one of the big strengths of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls that not a lot of people talked about is that it highlights how many really smart women were in the same generation, and how screwed over most of them got. Kidder obviously had her mental health problems (she was diagnosed as bipolar years later) that short-circuited her career, but it was really obvious that people like Polly Platt and Marcia Lucas got pushed down when their exes got elevated.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Cud you try a little harder? I dairya! Cowze so far I’m udderly unimpressed.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
Well, one of the first in English. You can blame the French for the actual definition.
But, then, I was never a Paulette.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Vanessa Redgrave read at a benefit read-aloud for the organization I worked for. I worked the front of the theater, not the green room. I’m told she was gracious and was interested in what out organization did. An autographed copy of her memoirs was auctioned off. She very nicely autographed 10 or 12 more copies of the book when we had a number of people offer to buy outright an autographed copy at the auctioned price.
A number of other celebrities performed at benefits for us and were very nice. Ben Stiller was very funny and interacted with children we brought in for an audience one year.
That guy (spacing his name) from The Odd Couple was nasty and read from a book about death. At a benefit read aloud!
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
[Sound of large teardrops hitting the desk.]
ETA: Hey, I had to leave y’all something to use. Otherwise you’d ruminant all night on how to horn in on the action.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
I had to check my memory and, yes, it was Francois Truffaut who wrote the initial essay about the auteur theory. It seems a little self-serving for a future director to decide that directors are the true “authors” of the film, n’est-ce pas?
(And yet Truffaut is about the only French New Wave director I can stand. C’est la vie, I suppose.)
SFAW
@NotMax:
Scientology?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@PurpleGirl:
Movie or TV version? TV cast was Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PurpleGirl: Tony Randall or Jack Klugman? Or Jack Lemmon or Walter Mathau?
or one of the several reboots?
sigaba
@Mnemosyne (tablet): If you ever need motivation to kill yourself, you just read the chapter on Marcia from Kaminski’s Secret History of Star Wars… That woman cut Effing Taxi Driver and by 1985 it was like she’d never existed.
(Also fun fact: George and Marcia met when both of them took a job cutting CIA propaganda movies for the USIA.)
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Wrong Coast, you’re thinking Larry Ellison. Who really IS worth 50-plus Billion, as opposed to claiming he’s worth X amount, but not proving it. And I don’t think Larry’s bankrupted any of his own companies yet. (I could be wrong.)
Of course, I wouldn’t want Larry running the country, either.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
I can’t remember if you’ve said before, but where did your kid get her degree? I got mine at USC and LMU (Loyola Marymount).
sigaba
@efgoldman: This sounds oddly like the USC MFA filmic writing program…
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Oh bull.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Surprising that he would lie still for so long.
(rimshot)
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): TV cast — Tony Randall. He surprised us with how he acted. Usually actors were very nice and understood that we were going for something more light-hearted.
sigaba
@efgoldman: Ithaca? My GF in high school ended up getting accepted to Ithaca. She was the one obsessed with George Lucas and she went there, I was obsessed with Frank Capra and I got into ‘SC. The relationship did not bear it.
I remember when we had USC MFA kids in 290, they were always the most obnoxious anti-establishment types. They took it as a sign of failure if you understood what they showed you. The word hipster did not exist at the time.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
You make me feel even better about picking LMU over USC for my MFA. I still have qualms sometimes since it hasn’t really paid off (mostly due to my reluctance to put ass to chair), but LMU does have a genuinely good MFA screenwriting program. I would recommend it to anyone.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
East Coast schools can get a little weird about commercial/successful films not being “good” films.
I think we have at least two Tisch School graduates in our midst (though I think they were both undergrads).
sigaba
@Mnemosyne (tablet): This was prior to LMU getting their film program, but I do know they got a lot of good industry people.
This was also prior to George’s (insert pinky in lip) ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR gift, which bulldozed everything I knew and loved about the place.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
I hated 290. Hated hated hated it. I was critical studies and really had no talent for it, so that didn’t help. I got a C by the skin of my teeth.
sigaba
@efgoldman: I was gonna say, I know one Tisch film grad and she’s a billionaire heiress and presently in the kind of rehab where they let you drink whatever you want as long as you show up for group. Also James Franco.
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Was this 290 on Super-8 or were you after the DV transition? Mine was the 2nd to last semester to do S8.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sigaba:
It’s not quite ALL bulldozed. I wandered over there after I went to the Science Center over the holidays. Lucas is still there, though weirdly foreshortened. The study center space still exists, though I assume it’s also been turned over to the music school. Marcia Lucas got turned into music rehearsal spaces. (My spouse was undergrad production, so he remembers the editing bays being a reasonably cozy space for a nap at 3 am.)
Those spoiled children have their own Coffee Bean at the new place, though. And they’ll never have to know the desperation of shopping at 32 Market.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq: Yeah, I had that same quote at the top of my post last night.
(Main reason I put the post together, in fact — it seemed to take the whole Trump-as-Lonesome-Rhodes to a new & scarier level.)
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I figure it’s either Middlebury or Cantab heaven. No idea which of those three have good film schools, and I’m too lazy to Google. Of course, the Athens of America area is 215 by car, not bird.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
S8, mid-90s. I actually enjoyed editing, I hated the shooting. Weirdly, LMU was still doing S8 in 2001, so I had to haul the splicer out again.
Spouse missed the switch to Avid by about a year, which is why he ended up in healthcare after graduation instead.
sigaba
@Mnemosyne (tablet): My main gripe is that they’ve sold out the entire mission of the school to turn it over to videogame people. It’s an abomination unto the lord.
Also, as someone who works as a sound designer it seems like the school has totally lost the sound design emphasis, USC was the only place that really turned out good sound guys. Tom Holman leaving didn’t help.
I’m class of 2000 so we probably have heard of each other, and I almost certainly have met your husband…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
For the enjoyment of MFA survivors, the GuyInYourMFA Twitter feed:
mobile.twitter.com/guyinyourmfa
Fiction, not film, but close enough.
Now it’s dinner time, so we’re heading out. Toodles!
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Travolta is a pilot, and owns his own private plane.
Cruise just owns his own private plane.
sigaba
I TAd a music video class my senior year where the kids shot on Super-8, but then they telecined with a professional colorist and cut in Premiere. Best of both worlds.
David Koch
And yet Beltway pundits still insist Republicans aren’t racist.
sigaba
@David Koch: Republicans aren’t racist in general. They just tolerate it.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Somewhere, in a carton I haven’t looked at in decades and should probably just toss unopened at this point, I think I still have a splicing block, reels of leader tape, and a bunch of (likely rusted beyond recognition) razor blades.
Did your radio mentor ever give you that thing of recording numbers 1-12 in random order and your job was to edit/splice them into numerical order? Fun times.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Self-serving? Or gutsy. Truffaut and his crew had mocked tired French films, and championed directors who were seen as mere technicians by the critical conventional wisdom.
And on top of it all, Truffaut and friends were challenged to put up or shut up. So they put up, became directors, and shut up their opponents.
I love stories with happy endings.
satby
@NotMax: fine, twist that knife :)
danielx
@efgoldman:
Vivid image of Karl Rove reading the story and screaming “fucking amateurs!” while hurling a martini glass against the wall.
Actually, I can picture Rove doing exactly that during any number of occasions during the current silly season. Trump, in addition to sucking all the air out of the other Republican candidates’ campaigns, has basically made Rove and his ilk…irrelevant. He doesn’t need them at the moment and doesn’t care what they (or anybody else for that matter) think. Unless House Bush reaches out to Turd Blossom in its hour of need, of course, but what does Rove do then? Rove’s classic tactic has always been to attack opponents at their strongest point, and Trump’s strongest point is that he’s a rich asshole. I can’t see even Rove starting a whispering campaign saying Trump is really a liberal squish, since he has all the other candidates competing to top him for the most outrageous/insane statements and promises – which none have been able to do as of yet. Positive publicity, negative publicity, Villager outrage*; Trump sucks it like a blank hole and cranks up the crazy another notch. Man’s a douchebag extraordinaire, but he has a far better grasp on using the media than any of the other dolts, in addition to a positive genius for self-promotion.
*If I was Donald Trump, I’d have a minion put an extremely vulgar and expensive frame around a copy of George Will’s column calling for me to be drummed out of the Republican Party and hang it on my office wall.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@sigaba:
We both graduated in 1992 and promptly failed to get industry jobs, so you probably don’t know us. ;-)
USC has gotten very bizarre since Sample left. Everything — and I mean a EVERYTHING — is being driven by the business school. The spouse is in the process of going back to school for a masters in library science and USC re-organized so that the library science school is now under the business school, and their MLIS will be a library management degree. It makes no sense, but they don’t seem to care.
sigaba
@SFAW: Zeta Reticuli?
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Of course. I keep forgetting how expensive it is, so usually default to that Trade School directly across from it, or the Liberal Arts place two miles up the Chuck.
Elizabelle
Did anyone mention we have a new panda cub at the Washington National Zoo? Born today at 5:35 p.
Hold your own, little panda cub.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
Travolta’s the amateur pilot — he named his kid Jett.
I thought it was ‘Jett Pilot Inspektor’ but it was a different Hollywood-based Scientologist who bestowed P.I. on his innocent offspring…
sigaba
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Sounds about right, the law school’s gotta be hurting lately and that was the other big draw for the people paying full fare. CNTV always had the Stark MBA program…
Botsplainer
@jl:
His investment and vendor victims from his bankruptcies would have some heartbreaking stories, but his base would laugh those off.
Anne Laurie
@danielx:
Ha, all the Very Serious Republicans — such as Jeb!’s handlers — are positively convinced that Trump is a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton. Why do you think they were so happy to push the story that Bill had “encouraged” Trump to run?
They’re sure us crafty Democrats plotted with this vulgar reality-show promoter just to make the Responsible Adult Republicans look bad. Were I an accomplished forger with no morals, I’d already be shopping some VERIFIED PROOF that Donald & Hitlery were snickering at the poor lowbrow saps with their undisguised racism & their hand-made Trump 2016 signs.
Remember, Serious Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed… or ratfvcked.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
They are so vulnerable to so many things. Hope s/he survives and thrives, and that there will be photos before long.*
*(We can haz pandacam?)
Kay
Oh, God:
Now they’re all going to start saying it.
sigaba
@Kay: Amity Shlaes would be proud.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: Time to get Grandma and Junior a job at the salt mines, I guess that’s the Republican way.
Debbie
@Kay:
I love how the numbers change as the sentence progresses.
Ken
I’m watching a Perry Mason from back around 1960. (Spoiler alert for fifty-year-old show.) The trial is over, Mason’s client has lost, the prosecution has proved that the murder was committed by Dwayne Jefferson.
Then the twist: Mason finds that his client isn’t Dwayne Jefferson, and brings the real murderer to the courtroom to move for a re-trial. District Attorney Hamilton Burger objects:
So I’m wondering, did Burger later change his name to Antonin Scalia?
NotMax
@Kay
Like unto running a campaign by exclaiming “Squirrel!”
Maybe someone will screen an episode of Ancient Aliens for him.
“I saw this documentary just the other day…”
redshirt
Kids today! I’m old enough to have actually cut a film – that’s what editing used to be, kids. Literally cutting and pasting the film.
Computers! Bah!
danielx
@Kay:
Worthy of McMegan, that is.
cckids
@efgoldman:
This, right here, is the essence of Donald Trump’s campaign, with its escalating insanity.
Though I expected better behavior when my kiddos were toddlers.
danielx
@Anne Laurie:
Plotting? With Trump? Last time I checked nobody needed to plot with anybody to make them look bad; they’ve been doing just fine with that all on their own. Every time I see a photo of one of the sixteen, or thirteen, or however many of the other buffoons fellating a corn dog…though I haven’t seen one of Chris Christie doing so, probably because he knows there are too many possible less-than-flattering captions available.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@jl:
I don’t get the need to think that T Rump is stupid. A colossal egomaniac, 1000% but that doesn’t make him stupid. And I think he wants the presidency. He revels in the attention, something that being a businessman didn’t provide him at the level he desired. The attention is more important than being correct and he knows that no president has all the answers, they have staff for that. And so does he. You don’t see or hear them because he is not only the loudest (by far) of any of his staff but I’d bet the they are not allowed to speak for him. That’s his privilege.
Back to attention. Why would he drop out? He’s smarter than any one else in the clown car, just ask him. He has more and better experience than the rest of them put together, just ask him. He knows that he has to run as a repub because he just be laughed at by democrats. He is at about maximum age to run, the clown car is in disarray, so this is probably his only chance. And what else can he do and get this much attention? Nothing. Does he care about actually doing the job? I doubt it seriously, but I don’t think that will stop him from accepting it if he wins. There is that staff you know. Would it be a disaster? I’d bet all of his money on that being a yes.
redshirt
@Ruckus: He’ll drop out when it’s too hard to go on. Running for election is hard work! Or he’ll win the nomination because it’s easy then get blown out in the General.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Give the man his due, he knows his audience. The more red meat he throws (infested with bovine spongiform encephalopathy or not), the better they like it and the madder they get, in every sense of the word.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: I don’t think he’s stupid. I think he’s nuts.
But even with that, I can’t imagine he wants a job where he has to answer to the public, deal with Congress, suspend his business, maybe that last should be first.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Cruse doesn’t pilot his own plane. I know this because I have met his pilot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and I wish SNL were back on ’cause I think they could have done great things with that flag-petting thing. Though I wonder if enough people saw that so that they could make a joke out of it? And I wonder who plays Trump now. Kate McKinnon can’t do all the heavy lifting
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think the antipathy he has generated at Univision (all Latino media?) is a big deal, that is no longer being reported, but will return if he is actually nominated.
I noted elsewhere that Berlusconi owned a large fraction of Italian media. Trump needs to ‘earn’ free media here.
That can go away.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
I’ve spliced film breaks, 16mm shown on board ship in the navy. Part of my duty. Also spliced 1in paper tape for computer programming. This was when we had to use a teletype machine to create the tapes in the first place and any errors, etc had to be spliced. If a splice broke it would crash the machine that the tape was loaded into. But that’s OK I know of machines that still use serial ports at 9600 to load programs.
catclub
@redshirt:
mis-spelling of ‘taping’?
catclub
@Kay: What else can they do when the government reported unemployment rate has fallen from 10% to 5% under the scary black guy? Admit reality? Ha!
Ruckus
@redshirt:
I think so as well. But there is always the possibility that a gigantic fuck up will happen and T Rump will attend his coronation. It happened 15 yrs ago, it can happen again.
redshirt
@catclub: Using phrases the kids will understand. No actual glue involved.
redshirt
@Ruckus:
As much as we all rightfully hate him, W. was a real politician with a pretty stellar pedigree. Trump is nothing of the sort – he’s an entertainer running for President. Yeah yeah, was Reagan, but again, he became a real politician over time with lots of inside clout. Which Trump does not have.
If our Dem nominee loses to Trump, all I can say is we deserve the hell to follow.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Not even for sniffing? Be honest.
catclub
@redshirt: Are there any kids reading this thread?
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can. It’s a scary thought. Hell it’s a scary thought that he’s running and it is possible at any percentage over zero that he might win. He probably thinks all of that is no problem for he’s the smartest man alive, and if you are in doubt, just ask him.
A point to remember, he’s probably gone as far as he can go in his line of business. And at his age and financial position and given his ego, business doesn’t give him anymore, well not to paint a picture that will make you lose your dinner, but, a woodie. Attention is the only thing that does and he can only get the amount he needs by going big. Bigger than he has ever done before.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: I am a child at heart.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
Agreed. But we’ve gotten what we deserve before, say 15 yrs ago.
People say he’s no politician. But what is politics but a methodology to elect someone that you’d maybe want to have a beer with, but wouldn’t trust to scrap dogshit off his shoe before coming in your house, let alone be president? And if you think I’m wrong, tell me about all the presidents of the last few decades and how many fit the above category. I can name a couple that it doesn’t fit, like the current one, but the rest? And don’t think of only one side in this question.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I myself decided a few decades ago that growing up was overrated. So while I’ve put in the time……..
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Hadn’t the TV shows about run their course before he decided to run? If not actually at least in his gathering attention?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Exactly. It allows me to relate well to my nephew and nice. I haven’t forgotten being a kid.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
Perry Mason expert here to weigh in. You are confused on the facts in “The Case of the Terrified Typist” (June 1958).
Mason moves for a retrial because his defendant is not the real Duane Jefferson, not because he (Mason) “brings the real murderer to the courtroom.” Mason wants his client retried under his real name, James Kincaid. That’s when Hamilton Burger has his outburst. His point is not a Scalian “Hey, we convicted someone, all right?” but rather that the defendant, whatever his real name is, is guilty of the crime. And that turns out to be the case. The person Mason brings to court is the real Duane Jefferson, whose discovery leads to the confirmation that James Kincaid (Mason’s client) is in fact the murderer.
I think Mason’s perfect record is finessed with a bit of legal jiggery-pokery to the effect that Kincaid will be retried—and convicted—under his own name, so this “loss” doesn’t count against Mason.
Hamilton Burger was often a dick, but to liken him to Scalia is a calumny that should not stand.
Bonus trivia: The terrified typist (and young wife of a U.S. senator) is played by Joanna Moore, later the wife of Ryan O’Neal and mother of Tatum O’Neal and Griffin O’Neal.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly. Stay young at heart and you’ll still be a kid at 70, good health considered.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
FYWP. Seriously? “Jiggery-pokery”?
To repeat:
@Ken:
Perry Mason expert here to weigh in. You are confused on the facts in “The Case of the Terrified Typist” (June 1958).
Mason moves for a retrial because his defendant is not the real Duane Jefferson, not because he (Mason) “brings the real murderer to the courtroom.” Mason wants his client retried under his real name, James Kincaid. That’s when Hamilton Burger has his outburst. His point is not a Scalian “Hey, we convicted someone, all right?” but rather that the defendant, whatever his real name is, is guilty of the crime. And that turns out to be the case. The person Mason brings to court is the real Duane Jefferson, whose discovery leads to the confirmation that James Kincaid (Mason’s client) is in fact the murderer.
I think Mason’s perfect record is finessed with a bit of legal jiggery-pokery to the effect that Kincaid will be retried—and convicted—under his own name, so this “loss” doesn’t count against Mason.
Hamilton Burger was often a dick, but to liken him to Scalia is a calumny that should not stand.
Bonus trivia: The terrified typist (and young wife of a U.S. senator) is played by Joanna Moore, later the wife of Ryan O’Neal and mother of Tatum O’Neal and Griffin O’Neal.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I’m one of those people who haven’t watched TV in over ten yrs. I watch some TV programs on Netflix but that’s it. And my taste is similar to yours, Dirty jobs, Flying Wild Alaska, a few documentaries. No news, Sunday shows, ads, infomercials…..
redshirt
@Ruckus: Me too. TV free for 3 years now. I don’t get Netflix either so I’m completely off the radar – except for the rabbit ears for the sole express purpose of Patriot games in the fall/winter.
SFAW
@redshirt:
I keep seeing pronouncements like that, and wonder if I’ve somehow been deposited somewhere other than the US. Because in the US, the electorate isn’t quite as smart or as rational as your statement indicates.
redshirt
@SFAW: 54-46. Blowout.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Stop it. The constant denigrating of Americans is tiresome. Euros are are really no better.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
This ties into a small fear that has started to nibble at the back of my mind: that somewhere there is a smoke-filled room of big-money Republicans gaming out how, if they can’t destroy the Trumpenstein, they could possibly ride him to victory. Go all in, push him over the top in the general election, then pack his administration with made guys managed by a few Cheney types at the top. Think late-period Reagan. Trump gets to be Trump in public, they strain mightily to keep him on script and minimize any collateral damage, and meanwhile it’s business as usual behind the scenes with a Republican Congress and the usual Republican corporate interests.
I don’t think Trump can go the distance, but, if he has the stamina to go most of the way and he manages to cripple all the other GOP candidates, I wonder if someone will start to consider some sort of Dr. Strangelove scenario.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: No irony in my comment… Right?
Tree With Water
Booman Tribune.com takes note of David Brooks’ continuing and very public nervous breakdown, and it’s getting grim. The Paterno-Sandusky-Penn State molestation scandal was raised during an interview today (i.e., the the rape of children by adults), and check out what the big brain on Brooks had to say:
MR. BROOKS: “If you’re alert to the sense of what evil is, what the evil is within yourself and what evil is in society, you have a script to follow. It’s not a vague sense. You have a script to follow. And this is necessary because people do not intervene. If–there’s been a ton of research on this. They say people, they ask people, “If you saw something cruel, if you saw racism and sexism, will you intervene?” Then they hire actors, and they put it right in front of them. People do not intervene. It’s called the bystander effect. It happens again and again, people don’t intervene. That’s why we need these scripts to remind people how, how evil can be all around..
…Well, I think they obviously need to make the law more robust. But we can’t rely on law and rules. It’s up to personal discretion. We’ve taken a lot of moral decisions and tried to make them all legal based. But there has to be a sense of personal responsibility, regardless of what the rules are, “Here’s what you do to stop it.” And so if you try to make everything a matter of legalism and rules, you’re going to get people doing the minimal, and you’re going, going to have people thinking, “It’s not my responsibility. It’s, it’s somehow lodged in the rules.”
Donald Trump after his fifth martini would make as much-or-more sense than does Brooks in those remarks. The man is a weird combination of strange duck and nasty piece of work, and gets paid to be both. Strange days indeed..
boomantribune.com/story/2011/11/13/204517/11
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
So you look at the political state and landscape in this country, you see how things are in Congress and the several States, and you think things are just going along swimmingly? After your current Governor has won three elections (including the recall)? With the ability of the Republican candidates to say stuff that, when I was growing up, and probably when you were growing up, would have been considered clinically insane, or as anti-American as it gets (without actually swearing fealty to Hitler or Stalin)? With a press that is complicit in all of this?
Yeah, I agree that I’m more pessimistic than many, or perhaps most, of the people here. But that pessimism isn’t based on visions I saw when I was dropping a bunch of Owsley.
The xenophobia, the anti-intellectualism, the denial of reality/science – all that stuff has been around for years, but it was never celebrated the way it is these days.
We’ll find out in 15 months whether we’ll all be crying, or merely laughing at my unfounded pessimism. I’m hoping it’s the latter.
redshirt
Not my chair, not my problem.
SFAW
@redshirt:
I don’t think he’ll beat Hitlery by that much. Six points, tops.
But Jim Webb would kick his Trump’s ass.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Not having that fight. All I mentioned was that there are Euros who are assholes too.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not strictly true re: the “all I mentioned” part – and you a lawyer and all! – but I certainly wouldn’t disagree re: the Euro part
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: W’vers.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
The only thing that keeps me from fully believing that you are 100% on point is that T Rump doesn’t really seem to give a shit what the GOP PTB think or want. I believe that he saw the field and decided that as he is 1000% smarter and richer than any of the other contestants (just ask him!) that this was a good game to play. I doubt that T Rump has ever thought about anyone but T Rump unless it was about how to get what T Rump wants from that person. If I’m right then if they try to tell T Rump what, who, when or how, he’ll tell them to take a flying fuck. I also imagine that either his way or theirs, it won’t go well for 80% of the US public as I doubt that he has any intentions of actual governing. And that isn’t a pretty picture.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
I pretty much agree with you. But Trump might be happy with the trappings of the presidential office and letting the “staff” do the heavy lifting of the real work. How much real work does he do now, aside from collecting rents and meeting with people to put the Trump name on their projects?
ETA:
Oh, yes, they’ll definitely have to “woo” him and make him think everything is his idea. I’m reminded of someone saying a while back that the powers that be would be happy with a cipher in office who would rubberstamp their agenda. Trump could be that, with proper cajoling and with his own signature “issues” to distract him.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
I think it would take people a lot smarter than the ratfuckers that make up the repub PTB to fool T Rump. For all his ego, ferret hair and all, I doubt that he is actually stupid. He’s survived or engineered 4 bankruptcies, walked away with around 3 billion in assets after starting with 40 mil, which is not chump change for sure but even accounting for inflation he has amassed just a tad more. He didn’t get where he is by being taken advantage of often.
Xenos
@Omnes Omnibus: Europe has more powerful political parties, so Trumpism is not so much of a threat. The closest thing is Italy with Berlusconi, and the comparisons are pretty interesting.
If LePenism makes more inroads in the UMP, it will be as distressing as Trumpism, certainly.
Cervantes
@SFAW:
You may or may not be “too pessimistic” — I’m not interested in making or parrying that criticism — but I would like to know about this:
Particularly that last — what makes you say so?
For example, the Bush years, 2001-2008, were thoroughly a repudiation and abuse of science. The Denier-in-Chief was in the White House. What could be more elevated than that?
Cervantes
@Ken:
Hilarious. Thanks!
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Reminds me of Woody Allen’s joke about sex on television.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
What’s going on now built on the Bush Abomination. Increasing evidence of global warming – not just computer models, but ice shelf collapses, increasing heat – is met with “I ain’t a sigh-en-tiss, so I don’t know” accompanied by laughter, increasing attempts to destroy the EPA (as well as calling their work into question), the running interference for fracking, etc.
Started (so to speak) with Bush, has only gotten worse; “worse” because there has been another seven years of AGW advance, which will make it that much harder – if even possible – to reverse it.
ETA: Neglected to include the anti-science postures of most/all of the current crop of Rethug Presidential candidates. They revel in how ignorant they are.
Cervantes
@SFAW:
Thanks. I see what you meant about the “reality/science” part, and I see why you’d date that particular three-ring circus back to 2001 (although I think maybe one of those rings can be dated back to 1995).
Could you elaborate the “xenophobia [and] anti-intellectualism” bit as well? I mean, in what way is that bit more celebrated now than it ever was?
Cervantes
@SFAW:
Yes, they laugh as we struggle — and watch the planet, and our kids’ futures, go up in smoke.
It is to weep.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
Re: xenophobia: there has always been xenophobia, but the “wall off the Mexican border” crap, along with things like the Jim Sherota comment (from Anne Laurie’s post the other day, re: $50 per kill), has elevated its “respectability.” I suspect that it’s also this year’s “gay marriage is coming to steal your children” (circa 2002 or 2004, don’t recall which election) as the hot button screech-fest issue. Anti-Muslim sentiments have increased (opinion, no data) since the Muslim Fascist Socialist Usurper stole the White House, aided and abetted by Obama’s funding and supplying nucular weapons to ISIS.
Anti-intellectualism has been around at least since Hofstadter, but as the Republicans’ long-term plan to destroy public education makes gains each year, things only get worse. I have sometimes found it funny (in a “sick joke” sense) that the Reichtards keep whining about those “liberal elites” – first of all, they mean “elitists,” since being an “elite” anything has been considered a good thing since time remorial, and second because the Reichtards exhibit the exact same behavior (i.e., “we’re so much better than those pointy-headed Lie-berals, we’re the Real Americans”) that they claim lefties exhibit. Projection, of course.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah:
It’s adorable that you think even a child molestation scandal would slow him down. These are the people who forgave Josh Duggar for molesting his sisters and will likely forgive him for having two Ashley Madison accounts.
Cervantes
@SFAW:
It’s easy to think of counter-examples, right? For example, xenophobia was pretty respectable when FDR caged Japanese-Americans, albeit during a war. It has also been part of urban life: in Boston we did not exactly welcome the Irish, and around the country already-here immigrants badly mistreated new ones. As for anti-Muslim xenophobia in particular, I’m pretty sure it surged after 9/11. And as for anti-intellectualism, well, it courses through our history, e.g., through Nixon, then McCarthy, and then Nixon again (with Agnew and Wallace).
Of course, counter-examples don’t prove anything, especially as you’re talking about a big picture — which I appreciate — it’s food for thought.
Thanks.
Cervantes
@Citizen Alan:
No, I think rikyrah is right about that, unless you assume Trump’s (hypothetical) crime took place when he also was fourteen.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
In other words
Which is my unendearing way of saying: there was really no substantive disputation of my “thesis,” you just felt like you had to argue about it.
OK, not a big deal, because I’ve usually appreciated your comments here. And, no, I’m not looking to get into another back-and-forth. Although I guess I should not have responded this time, if that were completely true. Oh, well.
Cervantes
@SFAW:
Was not “arguing about” your thesis, merely asking about it and thinking aloud about it — which people do sometimes, but not enough.
Did you somehow miss the second and third paragraphs of my previous comment?
(Did not follow your “unendearing” link; hence no comment on it.)
SFAW
@Cervantes:
Is that the “counter-examples” and “Thanks” comment? If not, then I must have missed it/them.
Assuming I have the correct comment: your so-called “counter-examples” weren’t really. Internment camps in WW2 being approximately equivalent to the irrational fear of ISIS killing us in our beds? And, no, I’m not going to get into the morality of those camps, that’s a discussion for another day, if ever.
The Boston Irish? The Jews? The French? The Germans? Those influxes were over 100 years ago. For a significant portion of the country to exhibit the same behavior in 2015, after all we’ve (allegedly) learned, is embarrassing, to put it mildly.
Reading your “response” regarding anti-intellectualism reminds me, in a vague way, of the amp in Spinal Tap going to 11. I didn’t say it started when Hofstadter was writing, I said “at least.”
Sorry you didn’t click the link, it wasn’t a Rick-roll, but, as you kids say “whatevs.”
Cervantes
@SFAW:
Well, yes, where I said my counter-examples don’t prove anything!
But if you’re determined to take offense, who am I to stand in the way?
SFAW
@Cervantes:
Well, I guess I only consider counter-examples to be such if they actually are counter-examples, rather than just repetition of pretty-much-unrelated occurrences.
But be that as it may: thanks, and I’ll stop now.
bjacques
Over here in Europe (well, Amsterdam, anyway), it seems like people are losing their minds about the refugees coming here from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, as well as Africa down to the Equator. Some of my liberal friends are soaking up nutty ideas about Muslims. The European population has been primed for xemphobia, pretty much since 9/11, by center-right parties mainstreaming the lunacy of the far right ones. Under the banner of all austerity, all the time, mostly center right governments have been busily dismantling the social safety net either directly by cuts or indirectly by costly privatization deals. They are steadily cutting benefits and pushing costs onto the recipients, their families and their neighborhoods. There’s a much bigger safety net here, of course, so it’s not obvious to my fellow Americans, so there’s more to dismantle, but it’s happening all the same. Europeans over all are feeling less secure, and which can lead to Bad Things Happening.
Since *someone* earlier let in some science fiction, I’m hoping John Shirley’s “Eclipse” trilogy doesn’t turn out to be prophecy.