Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Bark louder, little dog.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Fight them, without becoming them!

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

He really is that stupid.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Let me file that under fuck it.

“Alexa, change the president.”

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

You are here: Home / An Up Note

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  4. 4.

    harlana pepper

    Just when I was ready to drive an icepick into my skull for all time, Cole, you come up and make me smile again.

  5. 5.

    J.

    You know what makes me happy? Puppies! These little guys need good homes. Any takers?

    Oh, and the Michael Steele GOP bondage site? Brilliant. Looks like they finally found a way of recruiting new members.

  7. 7.

    khead

    Pat Buchanan just now on Tweety:

    “Only the government can create a bubble”.

    Just ONE HALF DAY of MSNBC and I’m going back to sports and movies 24/7. I don’t know how the rest of you folks do it.

  8. 8.

    J.

    You know what makes me happy? Puppies! These little guys need good homes. Any takers?

    Oh, and the Michael Steele GOP bondage site? Brilliant. Looks like they finally found a way of recruiting new members.

  10. 10.

    valdivia

    totally OT but NBC now trying to bank on Glee mania has a chorus singing competition called The Sign Off. Having nothing better to do I will watch it.

  11. 11.

    Leelee for Obama

    @khead: That was one of two things I heard him say. Only caught last moments, by mistake. The one I liked was putting himself in Middle America! My exact response was:”When the hell did you join Middle America, you bigotted fuck?” My Mother would have died all over again!

  17. 17.

    Keith G

    Yeah, nine days til Christmas, t’would be nice if crappy and contentious news took a bit of a back seat.

    Got my last big box of goodies down to the UPS place. This Santa’s works mostly done. Meredith Kitty has made herself a bed out of a stack of bubble wrap sheets. She seems quite happy.

  18. 18.

    Betsy

    Today was a terrible day here. My partner found out his teaching gig will end at the end of the months, rather than in May. So now he has to find a job/health insurance/both, over Christmas season. Awesome.

    Fuck, fuck, fuck our university.

  21. 21.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    Shoot, sorry to hear about that Betsy. At least you have each other. It sounds corny, but it’s true.

  22. 22.

    Violet

    Bwahahahaha! I missed all the fun the other night. The walking talking Steele is priceless. Thanks for the laugh.

  23. 23.

    MikeJ

    @Comrade Mary: TV from the beeb is tricky outside the UK, but if you enjoy radio shows they’re freely downloadable in the US and they’ve been on a tear lately. Red Dwarf, Flight of the Conchords, Peter Wimsy, a five hour Little Dorrit, Breakfast at Tiffany’s etc. Comedy, drama, great books, fun crap.

    The only down side is they only keep shows up for a week on iplayer. I just download and listen later. I think I’ve got a backlog of 30 hours to listen to.

  26. 26.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Betsy:
    My sympathies. A lot of unis are suffering these days. Ours is talking about furloughs. I have several friends in Cali who have already done so, taking a 15 percent pay cut as a result.

    Foam fingers and all.

  27. 27.

    Betsy

    @Notorious P.A.T.:
    Thanks, P.A.T. It is totally true. I agree completely. We’ve got each other, and our cat, and are unlikely to actually lose our apt. unless he doesn’t get a job for a while. And even then, I think our families would help us out as much as they could.

    All in all, we’ve still got it better than most.
    ETA: but somehow it’s hard to convince our lizard brains of that fact.

  30. 30.

    Annie

    @Betsy:

    Yes, fuck, fuck, fuck. It stinks. What to say. Bitch to us all you want. That is what we are here for.

    Although having reached 50yrs, I was with you all the way until you got to that 30th birthday…Fortunately, I look 30, so my looks sympathize with you, while the rest of my body says — oh to be 30 again. My students are 20 and 30ish so I try to blend in…Yes, universities suck…The good news is that universities are looking for adjunct staff, so maybe there is hope…

  31. 31.

    Little Dreamer

    @Notorious P.A.T.:

    Political Media’s Ward told Wired.com he saw the pranks coming a mile away. “Believe me, we were well aware that this was going to happen,” he said. “We’ve been on the internet doing business for every aspect of it since 1996. I was well aware exactly what was going to happen.”

    He didn’t have a fucking clue. CYA in action. LMFAO!

  32. 32.

    Betsy

    @Annie:
    Oh, I wasn’t complaining about turning 30 – that I don’t mind. It just puts a damper on any celebrating, is all.

  33. 33.

    Little Dreamer

    @Betsy:

    So sorry Betsy. Did I mention my 48th is coming up in a month? And I’m starting to hit menopause. Life sucks for all of us.

    Still, I’m sorry to hear about your partner’s job loss. I hope he finds another job very soon.

    (Attitude provided by “Hormonal Imbalances R Us” – we make no claim that this person will ever be the same again).

  34. 34.

    Annie

    @Betsy:

    I understand. But, let me be the first to wish you Happy Birthday, and know that things will get better. We will all celebrate with you….

  35. 35.

    arguingwithsignposts

    We are all different ages, and our birthdays different, but I don’t necessarily fear my birthday. I fear for my kids’ birthdays. They are less than 10, let’s say. They will face a huge world of fuckall (global warming, the US system gridlocked, global “free trade”) that will last throughout their lifetimes. I fear for them all the time. Myself, notsomuch.

    And that’s not necessarily in the spirit of the post. So I’m sorry for that.

  38. 38.

    Betsy

    Thanks so much, all. Please ignore the following bitching if you prefer – there’s no need to read it; it’s just my stream-of-consciousness thoughts on this.

    I am lucky enough that this is my first brush with unemployment or serious money worries. When I was very young, it wasn’t easy for my folks, but I wasn’t aware of it. For the last 6-7 years, I’ve been doing ok on a grad student stipend in a big city, because I don’t have a car, don’t have cable, and don’t spend a lot generally. Ditto my partner. But the possibility of him not having health insurance (he has some health problems that require fairly steady treatment), and not having any income, is really scary.

    Intellectually, I know we’ll be ok, but right now he’s feeling scared and depressed and I am too a bit. He’s likely not going to finish his PhD (for a whole lot of reasons that I won’t go into here) and it’s hard to know how that will affect his employability in the world beyond academia.

    /whining.

    Thank you for the kind birthday wishes.

  39. 39.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Betsy:
    Where is his ph.d. in? depends on the field. he can get a look at some jobs (not necessarily decent) without the finished ph.d. if he knows how to talk). There are a lot of schools who would bend the rules, or just accept the masters, if they knew they were getting a scholar. (BTW, the ph.d./mfa ultima drama is the most useless thing for scholars in academia). There. I’ve said it.

  40. 40.

    Little Dreamer

    @Annie:

    Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.

    I’m just feeling out of sorts. It’s not fair that we’re dealing with this crazy Republican faction trying to prepare us for Armageddon at the same time I’m going through “the change”.

    I should probably stick to Pogo for a while.

  41. 41.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Betsy: I’m very sorry, Betsy. It’s a sucky thing to have to deal with right now. Many vibes that your partner will find another job fairly soon. And, I am glad you clarified about your birthday because I was going to gently scold you for caring about turning thirty. Happy birthday. Hope you can manage to have some fun.

  42. 42.

    Betsy

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    It’s in history. But to be honest, I think the best possible thing would be for him to leave academia at this point. He does have an MA with a fancypants name attached to it, which may or may not help.
    I’m not sure exactly what you mean by the phd/mfa ultima drama, but I suspect I agree with you.
    @asiangrrlMN:
    Thanks hon. I appreciate all the good vibes I can get!

  43. 43.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Betsy:
    For the smaller schools, this is a huge thing (the mfa/ph.d. thing), of course, in history it is not the same. I spent several years managing a job board, so know some of that drama. But still, he could aim at some of the “lesser” schools” with his pedigree. There are some smaller private schools who would welcome an academic who was as well versed as your SO has been.

  44. 44.

    ellaesther

    Well, now. I guess this (the depressing posts — not the GOP shenanigans) is why I’ve been so little here lately! I am just so full to bursting with the world’s various miserable-nesses.

    But I don’t think I blamed you, John, for posting about it. I think I blamed the world for sucking. And I still do. I’m having a very hard time accessing my sunny optimism.

    But I have come to a conclusion as to at least part of why that might be, to wit: Back when it was all W. all the time, there was at least the comfort in knowing that HE WAS ALWAYS WRONG AND FUCKING UP AND OH.MY.GOD!! Plus the sense that things would surely get better once he was gone….

    Now, with a truly gifted, good guy in the same office and people I trust at all different levels of government again, I’m faced with the fact that the world is still kind of sucky, and politics is never clean. A good deal of the “but it’s still so bad!” is because W. et al were so EPICALLY bad that the legacy remains, but politics and human society have always been and forever will be brutish. So, even with the grown-ups back in town, it still is.

    Well look at me, bringing down the thread! Wheee! Sigh.

Comments are closed.