Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

So very ready.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: To Boldly Go…

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: To Boldly Go…

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… To a near approximation (close enough for media purposes) of space. And after fifty years of girdle jokes, he seems to be — how to phrase it? — secure in his own skin. Age hath its privileges!

… When Shatner boards Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin NS-18 in Texas at around dawn Wednesday, his one small step into the craft creates one of the ultimate crossover stories of our era.

It’s about space and exploration, sure, and certainly about capitalism and billionaires and questions of economic equity. But it’s also about popular culture and marketing and entertainment and nostalgia and hope and Manifest Destiny and, and, and … well, you get the idea.

“What will I see when I’m out there?” Shatner wondered last week, talking to Anderson Cooper on CNN. An equally valid question is this: What will WE see when he’s out there?

It will be a complex blend of human dreams superimposed upon technology and hope, braggadocio and cash, and the notion that space travel elevates us — all orchestrated by a company under criticism for what some call the decidedly un-utopian, tech-bro ways that it operates…

We live in an era where the fictional and the real have an intricate relationship, and sometimes it’s hard to separate them. Something like this, a collision of dreams and real-life ambition and achievement, couldn’t have a more effective ambassador than the outsized personality that is William Shatner.

“I was there last week rehearsing, whatever they call it,” Shatner told Anderson Cooper.

“Training I think is what they call it,” Cooper said, to which Shatner responded: “I think of it as rehearsal.”…

Meanwhile, for the rest of us:

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    Grab some headphones or earmuffs or cotton balls. The sounds of RWNJ heads exploding will be Krakatoaesque.

    DC Comics announced Monday that its new Superman, Jon Kent, is coming out as bisexual in a comic scheduled for November, marking a landmark moment for the publisher. Jon has taken on the mantle of Superman after his father, Clark Kent. Source

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I am far from being a Trekkie or Trekker or whatever the correct term is, so I’m a bit surprised at how chuffed I am over Shatner’s enterprise. Wishing him and the crew a safe launch, a happy trip, and a gentle landing.

    ?

  5. 5.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Wife is talking gloomily again about possibly needing to expatriate. Thinks it highly likely that we wind up with Trump or a Trumpy clone as dictator, primarily based on the sentiments of white women.

    The continued coddling of and catering to that 30% demographic lump that’s rooted in the filthy derangement of Borderer culture is spelling out our national doom. White women, being the worst, seem really susceptible to the messaging.

  6. 6.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @NotMax:

    I’ve always thought of Superman as being necessarily celibate. I mean, you know, who could survive that?

  7. 7.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Technically, Jemison was an astronaut before she appeared on Star Trek, so Shatner’s the first one to do it the other way around.

    If you ask me, Jemison’s achievement is more impressive because she did it the hard way.

  8. 8.

    Geminid

    Speaking of rocket power, Stacey Abrams will campaign with Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s populous Tidewater area this Sunday. Abrams will appear with McAuliffe at three Norfolk churches and headline a “Souls to the Polls” event. Black people are 20% of Virginia’s population. Their votes are the foundation of Virginia Democrats’ recent success, so Abams could really help.

    Hopefully, a Governor McAuliffe can return the favor when Abrams has her rematch with cheatin’ Brian Kemp next year. Georgians need a good Governor, and Abrams could be a great one.

  16. 16.

    Ken

    I might try those VR sims in that last tweet. It’s certainly the only way I’ll ever visit the ISS or the moon, and possibly the only way any of us primates will ever see anything outside the orbit of Mars (and I’m not that confident about Mars).

    Go forth, robot friends! Have a nice trip and send back lots of pictures!

  20. 20.

    germy

    I remember Shatner’s autobiography. When he developed tinnitus, he got so freaked out by it that he tried to join a support group. And then he found out the leader of the support group had killed himself because of the ringing in his ears, and Shatner had to find another group.

  22. 22.

    gvg

    @Ken:  He is an adopted human, raised on earth and only learned something of his biological race through recordings. Frankly it is the bio race that would seem alien to such a child.
    I know quite a few adults who were adopted and went looking for their bio family. It does not result in happy endings. If they are lucky, one sibling turns out to be a friend.

  23. 23.

    germy

    True:

    20 year olds are out here with baby pictures that just look like a current picture of a baby and not like a grainy still from a true crime documentary like the rest of us.

    — Ian Karmel (@IanKarmel) October 12, 2021

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    @germy: I remember a long interview of Christopher Plummer talking about his career. He mentioned a Broadway Shakespeare production in the late 1950s that he starred in. Plummer’s understudy was William Shatner.

  27. 27.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kristine: Your best bet is probably $300 for an Oculus Quest. But the project currently runs on PCs only fwiw, so you’d also need a computer to run it and connect the headset to.

    The Quest is normally a standalone helmet, but you can also use it as a great PC headset. Got my dad one at the beginning of covid and he used it for exercise for a long time.

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Geminid:

    Plummer’s understudy was William Shatner.

    Canadians are everywhere, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.

  30. 30.

    germy

    I want to introduce you all to a Persian phrase that I really like and use frequently:

    Jâye toh khâli bood.

    It directly translates to “your space was empty” but is used to say, “we wish you were there” or “we missed you and kept a place for your in our hearts.”

    — Kaveh MD (@thehouseofpod) October 10, 2021

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy: And then he found out the leader of the support group had killed himself because of the ringing in his ears,

    As a long time “sufferer”, that seems like a bit of an overreaction.

  37. 37.

    Soprano2

    So, since this is an open thread, a few things. First, I’ve been celebrating the “return” of our cat Killer; he seemed to have disappeared a week ago Sunday. I went door to door on our block to see if anyone had seen him; I looked in our garage and shed, nothing. Then, on Monday, I was in the bathroom getting ready for work when I started hearing meows. I thought “Oh, I guess Gary (another young cat that hangs around our house) got on the roof again (that’s a funny story). So I went outside to see if he was up there, but he wasn’t, and I was still hearing meows. So I looked in the basement, and after calling a couple of times out popped Killer! Evidently he’d been down there for over a week – he must have hunted mice to eat. I had looked there before though, grrrrrr. I have no idea how he got in there, because neither of us had been in the basement recently as far as I know.  I was so happy to see him, I cried a couple of tears. He was really hungry, too, and he hissed at me, but that passed pretty quickly. Now it’s time to redouble our efforts to get him and the dogs used to each other so we can bring him inside!

    On Sunday I cleaned out the rest of my mother’s pantry. It’s weird, going through someone else’s stuff. Her being OCD is paying benefits to me, as when I found a metal canister with keys on keychains, all labeled what they go to. She had kept a bunch of the little plastic bags the vet gives us pills in – they were all empty! I have no idea why she kept them; they were for cats that had died. By her computer, as I was going through the pile of catalogs, I found a printout from a Dennis Praeger web site, all about how to “know’ liberals so you can know your enemy. It was “lessons” about how liberals are different from regular people (us). (Did you know liberals don’t really like America? LOL) One of them was about liberals and art, and that’s when I started really laughing. He was offended that liberals don’t like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven anymore (not true, BTW), but instead like stuff that’s not music like John Cage (idiot, I don’t like John Cage either and think he was mostly full of shit). He carried on about 12-tone music (also something few people listen to anymore, for really good reasons, have you ever tried to listen to that stuff?), and why couldn’t liberals just like the classic stuff that was good! What he doesn’t seem to know is that many, many of the composers that we now consider the classics were revolutionary for their time, and their music was controversial. Creators are always pushing the envelope and trying new things – why would you do the same old thing someone else already did? I’ve heard it said that if Mozart were alive today, he would have been a punk rocker or whatever is cutting edge right now.  There was a lot of other stupid crap intertwined with a few things I actually agreed with, but reading this made me realize that he didn’t actually do much research and doesn’t know his subject that well. And this guy is supposed to be a conservative intellectual?!

  39. 39.

    Splitting Image

    @NotMax:

    DC Comics announced Monday that its new Superman, Jon Kent, is coming out as bisexual in a comic scheduled for November, marking a landmark moment for the publisher. Jon has taken on the mantle of Superman after his father, Clark Kent.

    Meh. I guess I should say “Good for DC”, but really I’ll just be counting the days until they reboot the DC universe again and wipe Jon out of continuity. At least they probably won’t have Clark make a deal with the devil to make his marriage with Lois never happen. That’s more of a Marvel thing.

    (I am not bitter.)

    It is funny though watching people – who obviously haven’t picked up a comic since 1986 and who aren’t willing to do the five minutes of research necessary to find out that this isn’t about the Clark they fondly remember – running to the nearest microphone to offer the world their Important Opinions on this. Extra special credit to the ones who are blaming Marvel.

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Maybe they are a bigger problem in a way, but I think as a group more angry white men voted for Trump. Both are a problem, and the women are particularly hard for me to understand. When I asked one of my FB friends how she could stand the nastiness, she did allow that he was “naughty” sometimes, but the way she said it was the way you’d talk about a wayward son you love. That’s how the women mostly seem to feel about him.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid:  they’re really bringing in all the big guns for Terry…I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.

    Oh well. Team Fro has already early-voted x3, donated, and will be helping at the polls on 11/2. What else ya gonna do, right?

  45. 45.

    MikefromArlington

    I think it’s fitting he get the opportunity. I’d image he’ll get pretty emotional during the whole thing. I mean yeah, it was just an acting role but a long term one that rly defined him as an actor so I’d image he rly took the role to heart and soul.

  46. 46.

    narya

    @germy: Thanks for sharing that this morning. My dad is slowly sliding away, and last night I (re)watched the final two episodes of “The Good Place,” so I’m sitting with a lot of sadness. That’s a lovely expression and perfectly captures a whole big slice of where I am.

  50. 50.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gvg: I get the impression that Superman’s personal notion of identity is something that evolved over time. In Silver Age comics he very much behaved like a benevolent alien who was pretending to be Clark Kent. In the 1980s or so they decided that was wrong–in his head he was Clark Kent from Smallville, since he’d been brought up that way, and Superman was the act. It makes more psychological sense.

  51. 51.

    The Moar You Know

    That poor rocket.  It won’t make it ten feet off the ground trying to hoist Shatner into space.

  54. 54.

    geg6

    @geg6:

    To be clear, there are loads of awful white women, no doubt.  However, when it comes to awfulness and who is the most awful, it’s the angry white male.  I would speculate that the majority of the awful white women would not be quite so awful if they didn’t have a bunch of disgusting angry white men egging them on.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Good

    Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias 1h
    White House brokers deal for expanded operations at the Port of LA

    WASHINGTON — The Port of Los Angeles will begin operating around the clock as the White House pushes to clear supply chain bottlenecks threatening the holiday shopping season and slowing the country’s economic recovery from the global pandemic, senior Biden administration officials said.

    Similar steps have already been taken in recent weeks at the Port of Long Beach. Together the two sprawling facilities are responsible for nearly half of all imports into the United States, making them a key part of logistical networks strained by the coronavirus crisis.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: It’s amazing what passes for an “intellectual” in Wingnutistan. Prager has always been a shallow partisan hack who feeds listeners facile justifications for their preexisting biases. His “university” is as empty and fraudulent as Trump’s.

    The new generation of wingnut “intellectuals” is every bit as horrid. There’s Ben Shapiro, who somehow makes a living as a podcaster even though he has the voice of an angry, helium-huffing squirrel, and the serial plagiarist who’s married to John McCain’s Daughter, Inc.

    There’s no better illustration of the desiccated state of American rightwing culture than the tumbleweed-choked desert that is conservative intelligentsia.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @geg6: I would speculate that the majority of the awful white women would not be quite so awful if they didn’t have a bunch of disgusting angry white men egging them on.

    In my experience, people hear what they want to hear. Also, they choose their friends. Jus’ sayin’.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I don’t think “women” are an identifiable voting group with a special set of issues they care about anymore than men are. I think there’s been a thirty year effort to say they are, but they’re not. “Women for so and so” (Trump or Biden, in this case) just doesn’t mean anything that can be reliably identified and replicated. If “women” did rally around something (or a set of things) specific they would be a really powerful political force – just in sheer size- but they don’t. Obama’s approach to working class, non college white women (he had gains there)  was not based on “women”, it was based on class and education.

  59. 59.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Matt McIrvin:  Superman is a metaphor for immigration. old country keeping you down, America shoot for the heavens. And Clark’s kid is full Americanized now with the bi stuff.

  60. 60.

    geg6

    As someone who covertly watched TOS as a young girl during its original run, I have to say I’m a little verklempt about Shatner going into space. Anybody else see the publicity photo of Shatner in a yellow/gold uniform surrounded by his fellow Blue Origin shipmates in red uniforms? I laughed and laughed.

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: It continues to be amazing to me how much they don’t understand the “average” liberal. I think they truly believe most liberals are like the few extremists they hear about in places like Hollywood or on college campuses.

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I agree with that, women are diverse people with different concerns just like men are. I wish more politicians realized that. I know it’s long been a complaint that the highly visible feminists were all upper class white women who thought all women had the same concerns and problems that they did. I think this is a perennial problem – we all tend to think that everyone must have the same problems we have.

  64. 64.

    sab

    @Soprano2: Glad you found your cat in time. The same thing happened to my cat the year they shipped me off to boarding school. She somehow got into the attic under the eaves where we kept luggage. Since I wasn’t home to look for her it took them a couple of days to find her.

  65. 65.

    geg6

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Can’t say I agree with that.  Some women simply don’t have choices and have to make due with the situation they have found themselves in.  Have had too many people I know in those situations to blame the victims.

  67. 67.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: That is so discouraging to me, but it doesn’t surprise me. I work with and know quite a few of them. They are convinced that Democrats are bad for their sons. I’ve often thought conservatives believe Republicans will keep their daughters from getting an abortion, and prevent their sons from being gay. That’s too simplistic, but I think there’s some truth there.

  68. 68.

    Soprano2

    @Splitting Image: I think it’s particularly hilarious when they get all wrapped around the axle about a totally fictitious character. It’s like people getting outraged about Disney changing fairy tales when they make movies. Hey, guys, you know that was already made up, right? It’s like my mother telling me once that Kwanzaa was a “made up holiday” and I said “Uh, mother, all of our holidays are made up”. She was not convinced by this.

  69. 69.

    john b

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I’ve always thought of Superman as being necessarily celibate. I mean, you know, who could survive that?

    There’s a bit in Mallrats about this whole idea that’s pretty funny (in a Kevin Smith sorta way):

     

    Brodie: It’s impossible. Lois could never have Superman’s baby. Do you think her fallopian tubes could handle the sperm? I guarantee you he blows a load like a shotgun right through her back. What about her womb? Do you think it’s strong enough to carry his child?
    T.S.: Sure, why not?
    Brodie: He’s an alien, for Christ’s sake. His Kryptonian biological makeup is enhanced by Earth’s yellow sun. If Lois gets a tan the kid could kick right through her stomach. Only someone like Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a kryptonite condom. But that would kill him.

  70. 70.

    Soprano2

    @sab: We have enough mice in our unfinished basement that he would have been OK for awhile. I was convinced he had gotten into some poison, or that a dog had killed him.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Via commentor Sam over at OTB, the man who represents himself has a fool for a client:

    Capitol rioter admits to two new felonies while representing himself in bond hearing

    Fellows was initially granted pretrial release, but was ordered back into custody in June after repeated violations, including missing a court-ordered mental health evaluation and allegedly calling a probation officer’s mother. The Justice Department also said when a clerk of the court attempted to contact Fellows about another violation – allegations that he was harassing a former girlfriend – it was discovered he had apparently put the number for the judge’s wife’s office instead of his own.

    Last month, Fellows asked McFadden to allow him to represent himself pro se in his case – saying he had spent the previous two weeks in the D.C. Jail’s law library and determined that was what he wanted. Despite warning him, repeatedly, of the possible consequences of going it alone with no formal law training, McFadden ultimately granted Fellows’ request.
    ……………………………………..
    Over the course of the nearly 2-hour hearing, Fellows rambled across a difficult-to-follow litany of complaints about his incarceration, stopping to touch on subjects as widely varied as the Taliban, Guantanamo Bay, a woman who’d left her child in a dumpster and a “constitutional lawyer” who had allegedly advised him to wrap his cell phone in tin foil to avoid capture.

    In her much shorter cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Furst got Fellows to admit – under oath – that he had climbed into the Capitol through a broken window without police permission, that he had used the previous judge’s wife’s contact information to try to get him removed from the case and that he had missed court-ordered mental health and drug testing appointments.

    McFadden, having listened to him talk for nearly two hours, then brought Fellows back down to Earth.

    “You are charged with a federal felony,” McFadden said. “This is not a community college where you get pats on the back.”
    ……………………………
    “You’ve admitted to incredible lapses of judgment here on the stand, not least of which was seeking to disqualify a New York state judge,” the judge continued. “You’ve admitted to obstruction of justice in that case, and you’ve admitted to what was probably obstruction in this case in trying to have me disqualified, and only Ms. Halverson’s advice stopped you from doing so. You’ve engaged in a pattern of behaviors that shows contempt for the criminal justice system, and I just have no confidence that you will follow my orders if I release you.”

    Better to keep one’s mouth shut and thought a fool than to speak and prove it.

  72. 72.

    zhena gogolia

    @Geminid: Shatner plays Alyosha Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov with Yul Brynner, Richard Basehart, Claire Bloom, Maria Schell, Lee J. Cobb, and Albert Salmi. He’s quite good in it.

  73. 73.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: In my experience, people hear what they want to hear. Also, they choose their friends. Jus’ sayin’.

    Yes,  Karin agreed to marry Celtus mostly because who else would touch such a pair of awful people?

  74. 74.

    Kristine

    @MisterForkbeard: yeah, I’m a Mac person and my Air is mid-2013, so according to this article it may be doable but it’s iffy.

    I will need to upgrade the laptop in the next year. Maybe by that time Apple will have something. I don’t game so it’s not a priority. But it would be nice to have.

  77. 77.

    mali muso

    @Jeffro: Same here.  Just saw that PBO will be campaigning for Terry Mac, which on one hand, yay, but on the other…scary that the polls are even close at all.

  79. 79.

    Cameron

    First they came for the Potatoheads; and I, because I was not a Potatohead, said nothing.  Then they came for Superman; and because I was not Superman, I averted my gaze.  Then they came for me….

    Is there any depth of depravity to which the gender communists will not sink our God-fearing culture?

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    Does anyone know if there’s an online clearinghouse that provides the current status of people charged in the Capitol riot? I ask because about a week and a half ago, a Proud Boy rioter from the Tampa Bay area got busted for running his boat aground while drunk. He was busted for the riot in March, and the feds granted pretrial release with a GPS monitor. After the recent drunk boating charge, the local cops let him out on his own recognizance. Just wondering if the feds picked him up for violating terms. There’s been nothing in the paper that I’ve seen on the case.  

  81. 81.

    dr. bloor

    The world might see James T. Kirk on teevee, but I’ll bet flying with him is a lot like getting the seat next to Denny Crane on a red eye flight.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @geg6: And I know too many who not only put themselves in that situation but chose to stay in it when given viable alternatives. Some who got out and then jumped right back into another that was just as bad or even worse.

    Some people choose to be victims.

    When my wife and I started dating, her ex started harassing her again. I told her what she needed to do. She did them. I stuck around and it stopped. If she hadn’t done them, I would have been gone. I am not in the “rescue” business. A buddy of mine tried that and the woman ended up siding with the asshole who killed him.

    Fuck that shit.

  86. 86.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Shakti: Right. I see this a lot, since media is going for clicks: “Superman is gay now”.

    Nope. DC (and marvel to a lesser extent) has a lot of temporary fill-ins for superheroes for events or to make them more relevant. Or they make some major change and then undo it a year or two later. This is like Death of Superman.

    In this case, it’s Jonathan Kent, Superman’s ~18 year old kid who is currently wearing the supersuit in place of his dad. It’s a nice gesture towards inclusion but doesn’t mean anything.

  89. 89.

    geg6

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And I know too many who not only put themselves in that situation but chose to stay in it when given viable alternatives. Some who got out and then jumped right back into another that was just as bad or even worse.

    And some may have been awful people gravitating toward other awful people.  Some may not and may be in a psychological space where that is inevitable when they have no support systems or mental health help.  Just sayin’.​

  90. 90.

    Geminid

     

     

    @mali muso: Youngkin is a skilled communicator, and he’s held to a shrewd strategy: attract Independents while lulling Democrats to sleep. It helps that he was a blank political canvas for voters that he could fill in to his advantage. And he has spread his money around Virginia Republicans, with the promise of more, so office holders and officials are unified, at least for this election.

    Now the contest is a matter of turnout. Democrats used to have a big dropoff in their odd, odd year elections. That changed after 2016, but maybe not forever. Democrats I talk to are motivated, but they vote every year anyway. I guess we’ll see what low-propensity voters do November 2.

  91. 91.

    artem1s

    I wonder what kind of G’s they will be pulling on lift off? John Glenn was 77 when her rode on the shuttle but he knew what he facing. Gotta wonder if someone who refers to training as rehearsal really understands what he’s getting in to.

  92. 92.

    Leto

    @Amir Khalid: so you have a fledgling sport, it’s just getting started, you don’t have the players or coaching staff to field anything resembling a decent squad… take your fucking lumps, learn from them, and move forward. If your high school team sucks, it means your club level teams suck. You have a long term project in front of you and part of that will be humiliating losses. Again, learn from it and move forward. Otherwise shut down the venture now.

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s some positive news — Val Demings has raised more than any senate candidate in Florida history at this stage!

    I saw a headline early this morning that Rubio raised $6M, which I found depressing because I figured he must be way ahead of Demings. Not so much!

  98. 98.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: Vast numbers of people hate Marco.  Twitter dick_nixon ‘s takedowns are fun.  But Val still has a fight to unseat him.  I’m glad to support her and very glad that she is getting traction.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  100. 100.

    cain

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: ​ I mean the guy isn’t even human, so I’m trying to figure out how it all happens.. Jon would be some kind of alien hybrid.
    That said, I’m glad to see this. The world of comics should be as diverse as the population in real life. Also, I enjoyed Dean Cain having a melt down on twitter.​
     

    ETA #100 mofos!!! That’s what I’m talking about!!

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I agree. It was always weird and wrong and had more to do with the (lower) place “women’s issues” occupy than “women”. It never made any sense.

    I think you can make an argument that the lack of public subsidies and services in the US (compared to other countries) is connected to the US attitude toward women. I saw a funny feminist tweet the ther day that I think is accurate “The US safety net is women”. For child care and elder care that is absolutely true.

    I saw there were men on Twitter promoting child care subsidies – they list what they make and then what they pay for childcare- and I thought “good- now we’ll maybe get some action on it”. The whole campaign should be fathers talking about unaffordable childcare. If it becomes a “women’s issue” we’re fucking doomed.

  102. 102.

    Betty Cracker

    @Another Scott: You’re right that it will be a battle since Florida has been trending red (and maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think we’ve elected a black person for statewide office since Reconstruction, if then). But that massive fundraising haul is unambiguously good news! If nothing else, it will obligate wingnut donors to pour money into the state to defend the seat.

  104. 104.

    cain

    @Soprano2: ​
    @Betty Cracker: It continues to be amazing to me how much they don’t understand the “average” liberal. I think they truly believe most liberals are like the few extremists they hear about in places like Hollywood or on college campuses.

     

    Because liberals are portrayed as extremist even if their positions are moderate. It’s always over the top. That’s why every democratic politician is portrayed as the most liberal of liberals – compared what was before. Of course the jokes on them because Joe is probably the most liberal since Carter.

  105. 105.

    mali muso

    @Geminid: Yeah, I have been receiving mailers almost daily for the fresh-faced Rethug running in my district to unseat Wendy Gooditis (D), many of them sponsored by Americans for Prosperity.  A lot of money being funneled here.

  106. 106.

    scav

    @cain: I’m rather of the persuasion that women can exist, take action and have mindsets —even crappy ones — even in the utter absence of the male input.

  107. 107.

    gvg

    @Kay: ​
      There is a significant difference in how women vote versus men. It was bigger with Trump than before and minorities are a factor but gender is a factor. Just not the only one.

  108. 108.

    Gravenstone

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: In some timelines, Wonder Woman is his partner. And the outcomes tend toward the near cataclysmic when mating. Of course, that storyline (and associated series of extended and increasingly meandering takes on his “Dark Knight” franchise) is also a reminder that Frank Miller is somewhat batshit crazy these days.

  109. 109.

    rikyrah

    @Jeffro: 

    @Geminid: they’re really bringing in all the big guns for Terry…I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.

    no coulda, woulda, shoulda.

    They are going all out.

  111. 111.

    Zelma

    @Betty Cracker:

    There has alway been the belief that women would vote as a group. The suffragists and reformers thought that once women began to vote in 1920, they would support social reform.  The politicians believed it too and actually passed a women and child health act (can’t remember the name) that was miles ahead of anything passed for the next four decades.

    Then it was discovered that women were much less likely to vote than men and that when they did vote, they were likely to vote like their husbands.  They did not then, nor have they since truly voted as a “bloc.”  The act was allowed to die.

    I have often wondered whether Hillary’s emphasis on breaking the glass ceiling was not good politics.  It seems to me that Obama believed that just his existence as a Black candidate was enough without continually underlining it.  By making her gender a huge issue, Hillary encouraged misogyny  to flourish.  I don’t know that this was determinative, but it may have played a role.  Certainly there is a lot of misogyny out there and not just among men.

    I also wonder how many of the “new” female Trump voters came out of the Evangelical community.  I’m sure someone has looked into this.

  112. 112.

    Gravenstone

    @artem1s: “No Mr. Shatner, we won’t be releasing the restraints until we’ve landed. You were told time and again during training not to touch anything. It’s your own fault for not paying attention.”

  113. 113.

    Shakti

    @Betty Cracker:  The “intellectual dark web” is dark because there are some incredible dim wits posing as intellectuals.

    Most of them don’t have the intellectual wattage to power an EZ Bake oven and if they did, somehow the act of perpetuating a framework to intellectualize their garbage makes them sound extremely stupid, like making gross errors in logic stupid.

    And the sad part is I’ve seen this in real time. People who said and wrote smart things spew increasingly idiotic nonsense that pops up even when they’re NOT talking about their ideological bug bears.

  114. 114.

    Betty Cracker

    @Zelma: From what I’ve read, you’re exactly right about the uptick in women voting for Trump coming mostly from white evangelicals. They went from somewhat skeptical to full-on worshiping the orange calf at a clip that demonstrates what a hypocritical sham their moralizing is and always has been.

    I don’t know if Clinton’s emphasis on the historic nature of her candidacy made a difference or not. My guess is that sort of talk is as likely to turn people off as it is to inspire them. That said, pretty much everything that could have gone wrong for Clinton did go wrong, and at the worst possible time, so we’ll never know if that one thing in particular really mattered.

  115. 115.

    Audrey

    @Zelma:  ” By making her gender a huge issue, Hillary encouraged misogyny  to flourish.”

    Really?  We’re going to blame the woman for causing misogyny?  I’ve never noticed it needed any help or encouragement to flourish everywhere and at any time.

    ETA:  It must heave been her responsibility that so many of the media men active at the time were also apparently sexual predators.  Unless it’s just some wacky coincidence.

  116. 116.

    artem1s

    @Zelma:

    OY!

    I have often wondered whether Hillary’s emphasis on breaking the glass ceiling was not good politics. It was never her choice. The whole framing has been thrust upon her by those who know they will gain ground with certain voters who will never, ever vote for a vagina. It’s not like she could hide the fact she was a woman FFS.

    It seems to me that Obama believed that just his existence as a Black candidate was enough without continually underlining it.

    Obama was certain his existence as the first serious MALE black candidate was enough to win him the primary over ANY FEMALE  candidate. The media, the GOP, the Party all backed him up without qualification as to whether he had likability among voters. Hell even John Edwards endorsed Obama – not at all a problem with women voters in the 2010 and 2014 midterms.  BTW, Hillary won the popular vote in the 2008 primaries but only if you count FL and MI votes who had their elections nullified by the Party – a move worthy of the GOP IMO to ignore the will of the voters to game the outcome. BTW, those super delegates were just fine once the MAN got their backing. The committee’s task was to resolve how to treat the delegates from Florida and Michigan, which had moved up their primaries earlier than the Feb. 5 date allowed by the party. OH The HUMANITY!

    By making her gender a huge issue, Hillary encouraged misogyny to flourish. OMFG YES! Killary is solely responsible for stealing the agency of every misogynist EVER!  FFS she didn’t invent it or ENCOURAGE it to flourish.

    I don’t know that this was determinative, but it may have played a role. Certainly there is a lot of misogyny out there and not just among men.  The most misogyny I’ve encountered has been from liberal, rich white women who love to down punch on Black and middle and lower class women who have risen above their station.  Hillary has always been a beltway target because she doesn’t fit the mold of a 1950’s housewife and mother or politicians wife.  Personally I’m grateful for the uncountable number of times Hillary said the quiet parts out loud for the first time and took the heat and paid the price for the rest of us. We need more politicians with her courage to speak uncomfortable truths, not fewer (thank you Maxine, Stacey and Kamala). She was right about TFG and the Deplorables who follow him and now we can all say the truth out loud too. Middle and lower class women voted for Hillary. It was the rich upper class country club wives who betrayed their gender. Not every white woman in America believes the lies the GOP and Televangelists have told us about women politicians.

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: It was particularly hilarious to read what Praeger said about morals and morality, how conservatives had a fixed morality based on solid principles while liberals didn’t. This was written in 2015. Whether it was ever true or not, Trump came along and blew that particular argument to smithereens – no conservative can make that argument today with a straight face.

  120. 120.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Star Trek was produced by Desliu the production company created by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball.

    Star Trek infamously didn’t do well when it was first on tee vee and executives wanted to cancel production because it wasn’t profitable enough, but Lucy loved the show and insisted the show go on. In reruns it turned into a big hit and fifty-plus years later it’s still a cash cow.

    I love Lucy.

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was chief writer for Have Gun, Will Travel. Paladin and Kirk had very different jobs, but when Kirk got tortured by aliens, he would launch into the kind of soliloquy Paladin would speak when the bad guys beat on him. Then each would turn the tables.

    Shatner’s successful 50 mile trip into space made the 5pm radio news. The Klingons couldn’t kill Captain Kirk, and neither could Bezos.

  123. 123.

    Kalakal

    Bezos should have taken Keir Dullea
    Hearing “Open the pod bay doors please, HAL” from space would have been freaking awesome

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