I really wish Steve Gilliard were here to share his opinions on the Hoffman Surge in NY-23. There is a war between the native NYCers and the appleknockers cowhumpers upstaters with at least 200 years of history behind it, and the Ankh Morpork Big Apple team has all the good snarksters.
I am not superstitious but I am a devout animist, and this worked for the first game:
General Winfield Stuck
I am. And this tune always keeps the spirits happy.
I think they are relations to the Nylons.
MikeJ
I think I came up with my NaNoWriMo plot. Title: “Lifetime Guarantee” . A new computer is purchased with a lifetime guarantee. This doesn’t mean it never breaks down, but instead, when it does, someone must die!
I may be able to milk 1600 words per day out of that.
El Cid
This might be fun:
Danton
I miss Steve’s take on military adventurism, among other things. I miss his food essays, too.
Martin
Yeah, FTFY! And fuck the steroid users on all teams. And fuck the umpires who seem to be extra shitty this post-season. I hate to call for instant replays (everyone says that) but some of these calls have been extraordinarily bad – particularly that 3rd base call in game 4 of the ALCS, and the 2nd base call right before it wasn’t much less obvious.
woody
If so, you may be assured Geithner and Bernanke will find a way to applaud and reward them for their “industry.”
linda
you know what else i wish gilly was around to comment on is this nugget:
“He [Alex Rodriguez] was so vain. He had not one, but two painted portraits of himself as a centaur. You know, the half man, half horse figure,” scoffs an ex-girlfriend to the magazine. “It was ridiculous.”
Read more: nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/10/31/2009-10-31_arods_vanity_of_mythic_proportions__has_selfportrait_.h…
oh yeah… fuck the fucking yankees….lol
Incertus
Completely non-baseball related, but the journal Measure selected one of my poems as a special feature for this issue and put it online here. There’s also an .mp3 of me reading the poem and a nice author photo, if anyone’s interested.
linda
@El Cid:
taibbi is working on a book about goldman sachs, too.
John Sears
Oddly enough, though I was more or less born an atheist, I’ve always had animist tendencies. As a kid I’d worry about throwing anything away for fear of losing whatever innate special-ness it had, and as an adult it’s turned me into something of a pack-rat.
@MikeJ: That premise has a nice, early Stephen King feel to it. Sort of like ‘The Word Processor of the Gods’. Good luck and so forth. I never can stick with things like Nanowrimo. Or properly capitalizing acronyms.
Steeplejack
Fixed a gigantic drink and was just sitting down to watch the game when suddenly I got distracted by the start of X-Men on HBO. I’ve never seen it all the way through–never wanted to–it’s almost 10 years old, but suddenly now some part of my hindbrain thinks it’s must-see TV?! I think I have ADD. Can you catch that in middle age? Or is this Yahweh telling me that seeing the Yankees get beaten is not worth watching three hours of them playing the Phillies to get there? I am torn.
But FTFY anyway.
MikeJ
@Steeplejack: This is why God made On Demand. I very rarely manage to sync my schedule with that of any of the movie channels. Much easier to just watch when I want to.
Ed Marshall
It would be fun to see Red State Strike Force lose but what are we wanting to win here? A House seat? Making them have frowny faces is reward enough, but it’s not like God Has Shat Upon Us All if they get this guy in. Democrats haven’t won there in a century, it’s a miracle the thing is contested in the first place.
Martin
Is it just my local station, or is watching the game like watching Univision with SAP on? The audio is totally out of sync.
The Grand Panjandrum
Of all the writers I wish were alive today I think I miss Molly Ivins the most. But Doc Thompson from the 60’s and 70’s is a close second.
My Huskers won today. Now Go Yankees!
Ed Marshall
Maybe this is “no matter what happens we win” bullshit, but part of me wants to see him win because the usual suspects will embrace the meme that if you run some nutty, far right wing, Austrian economics loving, bible-thumping, moron it’s pure electoral gold. I’d give up an addition to the already ludicrously dominated house to have them learn that lesson.
Martin
Basically we want to see the teabaggers double down in their efforts to destroy the GOP. I mean, even a few moderate Republicans who can stand up and follow their conscious would be nice (like Snowe voting for health care) but the party is too far from allowing that to happen, so I say let them blow themselves apart until they get a clue here.
John Sears
@Ed Marshall: I’m thinking it’s might be better for us in the long run if Hoffman does win. Look at how the crazies who get power are splitting the Republican party in two. Your Palins, your Bachmanns, etc, they attract enough lunatic followers to hold onto local power but they’re so obviously insane that they’re sort of self-limited.
Imagine if we had twice as much Michelle Bachmann news, and how bad it would make the GOP look. That’s what I’d hope for from a Hoffman victory. Oddly, I bet that’s what the Red State crowd wants too, they just don’t know how bad it is for them in the end.
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Amen. I’ve got a DVR, but it sits perpetually almost full at ~39.99 hours. Anytime I want to record something new, I have to jettison something that was must-see TV three months ago. And I never seem to watch any of it. WTF?!
I haven’t had much success with on-demand. The on-screen interface seems painfully slow, and I never can tell whether I can demand something for free or if I’m going to see some extra charge on my bill. Maybe I’ll try it for this.
Still can’t believe I have a sudden jones to watch X-Men.
Martin
Audio is fixed. I blame the Yankees.
Martin
@John Sears:
I think we’re past that point. The teabaggers achieved their primary goal here – they knocked out the GOP candidate. If Hoffman wins, the GOP as a whole will just take one step to the right and proceed. That probably helps us a bit, but better to have the teabaggers feel like they need to do more and throw up even whackier primary challengers in 2010.
General Winfield Stuck
Is there anything we can do to help?
2010 is going to be the Real Halloweeni
Fulcanelli
@woody: Geithner and Summers need to go.
I knew something stank when Obama announced Geithner as his Treasury Secretary nominee last fall and Wall Street grunted and nodded approvingly. Bastards.
aimai
I just have to say that I miss Steve every day.
aimai
Yutsano
My Cougars are playing Notre Dame. Sigh. I couldn’t watch even though they had a pretty damn good goal line stand.
Oh and Fuck the Fucking Yankees. I think I’ll just go to the store and get guacamole fixins.
Bad Horse's Filly
I saw the Nylons in concert – didn’t even know who they were at the time, went with a date who loved them. Needless to say, it was love at first note.
John Sears
@Martin: Can they get much wackier, though?
I’m fairly sure that Bachmann, for example, is clinically insane.
Steeplejack
Hmm, apparently my mutant power is some sort of TV-schedule hyper-awareness that they won’t be playing baseball tonight, or at least until X-Men is almost over.
Got the game queued up on picture-in-picture for quick-burst check-ins during the movie. Still need to clear a bunch of stuff off the damn DVR.
Steep +2.
kay
We had an “insurgent” Club for Growth-backed primary candidate in a special House election here.
The local Republicans, who are very conservative, got rid of the insurgent in the primary, and voted for the moderate local, who went on to win the general, as expected.
They resented the out of state interference in what they saw as a local election.
Maybe upstaters don’t resent that, or they haven’t figured out that Hoffman must have gotten all that money from somewhere.
It wasn’t the GOP, who gave to the Republican who dropped out, and it certainly wasn’t the teabaggers.
The Republican said she was “outspent by both sides”.
Where’d Hoffman get all that money to nationalize this race? I’d worry about that a little if I lived there.
Martin
@John Sears:
We need them to run Bachmanns in primary races with moderate Republicans and put all their weight behind them. Most will lose, but it’ll bleed the GOP dry before the election and it’ll help bring independents toward the Dems.
General Winfield Stuck
Story of a Soldier
naomiah
It does me good to see Steve’s name on a blog again. FTFY.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@aimai:
I miss him, too, aimai. When I think back on this last political cycle, I know both Gilliard and my dad – a life-long Democrat and political historian who died in 2007 – would have both just loved it. Both would have reveled in the nuances and the characters and, most of all, Obama winning the presidency.
Gilliard, who I didn’t realise was black til one day, about two years before he died, published a picture of him with his niece and nephew at a skating pond. (I think). “Wow, Steve’s black!”, I thought to myself. His writing was so good and his grasp so wide of history, politics, and geography (and sports), that I never thought of him as “anything”, but, rather, as “everything”.
My dad died at the age of 91 in 2007, and he enjoyed talking political history and campaigns til almost the end. He was able to vote for Obama – as Senator, as he lived in Illinois – in 2004, but he would have been delighted to have voted for him for President. My dad hated most Republicans, but he had a special hatred for “W”.
My older sister, also an ardent Democrat and Obama supporter, died last September of cancer. I hope she and my Dad were looking down, with Gilliard, last November and seeing Obama’s victory. Sweet desserts, indeed.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Oops, my grammar was “off” in my post above.
Steve had posted a picture of HIMSELF with his niece and nephew.
And, I hoped my dad, sister, and Gilliard were looking down last November and SAW Obama’s victory.
We need “preview” around here!
mikefromtexas
I can only imagine what Steve would be posting about Michael Steele right now, but I know it’d be some funny shit. He and Molly are without a doubt very much missed.
Danton
@aimai & phoebe–
When I’m at Daily Kos, I still click on the Gilliard link.
@phoebe–
Are Tia Sofia’s and Molly’s Kitchen still there in Santa Fe?
Steeplejack
Nicely played, Mr. Steepleton. Just finished X-Men and switched over to the game to find myself at the first pitch of the bottom of the second. Score 0-0, so I have missed nothing.
Oops! The Phillies just homered. Sweet! FTFY.
Wile E. Quixote
@Anne Laurie
I wish that NYC would secede from the rest of New York state. It would be a great deal for the city, they’d get to keep all of the tax dollars that are currently keeping the rest of the state afloat and it would be a nice stick in the eye for the wingers who keep bitching about how liberal New Yorkers are.
Bruuuuce
Wile E. Quixote @38: I’ve suggested this (as a NYC resident) several times. We’d want to include some surrounding territory (including Lawn Guy Land and Westchester and Rockland Counties, at least, possibly extending out another county or two to the north).
The problem I see with this is that while we’d still have two Democratic Senators, this would almost certainly open up the other part of the new 51st state to two more Republicans. Aside from that, it’s a lovely thought.
As is the Yankees winning a couple of games in Philly, starting tonight.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Danton
Tia’s is still here. I eat there a couple times a month. It’s still good. I’ve never eaten at Molly’s. The NM restaurant that people who live here all seem to like is Tecalote, out on Cerrillos. It’s a little less touristy than Tia’s. The food’s very, very good. I eat there a couple of times a month, too. It’s closed on Monday’s, where Tia’s is closed on Sunday. I’ll have to try Molly’s sometime.
Another non-touristy restaurant is Counter Culture, which is near Tecalote, off Cerrillos. It’s open all three meals most days and has an incredibly innovative menu. Also reasonably priced for the fresh, well-prepared meals you get.
Wile E. Quixote
So I clicked on the link titled “Pelosi’s House of Horrors” which links to a donation site at GOP.com. Among the stupidity this paragraph stood out.
You know, I really wish that one Democrat, just one would tell the Republicans to shut the fuck up, that they lost the White House and that asking them for input on health care reform is like asking Al Qaeda for input on our policy towards Israel. I want them to use exactly that analogy because it not only compares Republicans with terrorists but it also invokes Israel, so it would be a double cognitive mindfuck on the Republicans, assuming that is, that they have minds to fuck with.
Gregory Sams
I like your devout animist statement and suspect you would like my recent book, which lays out a rational basis for the animist inclination – showing how spirit infuses all, starting with our local star. It it titled Sun of gOd and you can find out more at http://www.sunofgod.net