Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This blog will pay for itself.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

“woke” is the new caravan.

So cool that a Black prosecutor nailed his ass.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

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Readership Capture

Racist Shit

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As a general rule when a black person or persons tell me something is racist or bordering on racist, particularly people I respect like ABL and TNC, I don’t argue. If I disagreed with them initially or just didn’t notice the racist aspect of something, what I try to do is just be quiet for a minute. Then I try to figure out what it is that made me not recognize something as racist. I’d say a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am a middle-aged white guy from a state with a small minority population, and I just don’t have the same experiences. Like I have said before, it wasn’t until ABL came on board here and I started seeing some of the truly awful things people write (and I promptly delete out of the spam filter so no one else, especially ABL, will see them), that I ever really thought about these things.

And why would I? I’m a white guy, I’ve never said any of those things or thought them, and they’ve never been directed at me. I mean, we all recognize the overtly racist crap- the fried chicken and watermelon jokes, the pictures of Obama with a bone through his nose, the slurs (the n-bomb comes to mind), etc. And since I don’t live in a very cosmopolitan area, I don’t have a lot of black friends- where I am is pretty damned Mayberry white. So I don’t notice these things, and I don’t have a history of dealing with the more subtle aspects of racism.

Having said all that, even my pasty fish-belly white self can recognize that what Michael Moore said was racist- “I went into the polls voting for the black guy, and what I got was the white guy…” That doesn’t mean he is racist, but it sure as hell does mean he made a racist remark. I don’t even know why this is controversial it is so obvious. What exactly was Michael Moore expecting from “the black guy?” Let’s flash back to the 2008 election and watch this little video from my state:

All that bullshit about “someone they know” or “someone who can recite the Pledge of Allegiance” or the other stuff you all rightly recognized as them saying “I WON’T VOTE FOR A BLACK PRESIDENT.” How, exactly, is what Moore said any fundamentally different from Republicans whipping up fear about Obama in 2008 because we don’t want rule by a “black President.” It’s the same god damned thing, just Moore wanted “the Black President” and all the people the Republicans wanted to scare didn’t want “the black President.” It’s the flip side of the same damned coin.

The fact that there have now been two threads, and some of you still don’t seem to get it, makes me wonder something that is itself bordering on racist, mainly- “WTF IS WRONG WITH ALL YOU WHITE PEOPLE?”

And I’m done talking about this crap. I’m seriously sick and tired of some of you who every time ABL posts something, you go ballistic and start calling her a race-baiter. It’s absurd, and ABL isn’t the one who looks stupid. Sure, she is over-the-top and in-your-face, and she’ll admit to it, but maybe you should just take a moment, shut the fuck up and be quiet, and think about why she is interpreting things through a different lens than you are. Or, if issues of race are so unsettling to you, you just scroll past her posts and continue to convince yourself we live in a post-racial America, and you won’t have to trouble your pretty little head with the kind of ugly crap that good people like ABL, TNC, and your President and his wife and beautiful daughters go through every day. It’ll be easier that way. You can tell yourself “I’m not racist, so therefore it doesn’t exist.” It will keep you from grappling with things. It will keep you from saying “Wow. You know, I never knew that something I used to say or do could be perceived as racist.” You’ll not have to deal with the fact that good people can still say stupid ugly things, even when they don’t mean to. You’ll never have to think about the fact that maybe you’ve been doing something or saying something hurtful or ugly without even meaning to, because your intentions are as pure as the Virgin Mary. You can just keep on rolling on, and mutter to yourself about all those hyper-sensitive black people.

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Open Thread: Nutpicking Shameless

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As a distraction from that Sully fella, I give you the “director of MyGovCost.org, a project of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute” and “the Searle visiting assistant professor of Political Science at Duke University“, Emily C. Skarbek & David Skarbek, explaining why “It’s Time to Get Rid of FEMA“:

In the last two weeks, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake and Hurricane Irene both rocked the East Coast. Immediately, politicians began touting the crucial role that FEMA would play in rebuilding these communities and the need for federal disaster response. However, these presumptions are largely based on the misguided notions that the federal government can redirect necessary resources efficiently and that private enterprise is incapable of getting the job done. Contemporary and historical evidence show that neither of these assumptions is justified.
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Politicians from all sides of the political spectrum agree that FEMA’s work in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was a spectacular failure. […] __
The historical record for disaster response in the absence of FEMA and a centralized federal operation also attests to the ability for private enterprise to provide more efficient relief more effectively. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, one of the most devastating disasters in the 19th century, is a particularly compelling example. The fire killed hundreds of people, left one third of the city burned to the ground, and over a hundred thousand people homeless. FEMA was not there to direct the emergency response, and, in fact, because there was no income tax, people had no charitable tax-deduction incentive to give.
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Despite the complete absence of federal aid, historians have documented how remarkably swift and extensive the relief effort was after the Great Chicago Fire. Donations from businesses, individuals, voluntary associations, and aid from small municipal governments arrived immediately and funded the entire recovery effort. A private charitable organization, the Chicago Relief and Aid Society, managed all of the contributions and coordinated the massive effort. Within a month after the fire, the Society built homes from scratch for over 30,000 people — complete with stoves, crockery, and bedding. Over the course of the following year, the Society supplied over 150,000 people with weekly rations, including fuel and fresh beef, administered over 70,000 free small pox vaccinations, assisted people in finding employment, and provided free transportation on the railroads for people seeking to relocate…

Shorter Skarbeks: Since it’s been proven that people who hate functional government will screw up government programs, how about you catastrophic luzers settle for a lovely Wal-Mart gift card and a one-way bus ticket to some coastal enclave where they haven’t yet realized that all taxation is theft? It worked out pretty well a century and a half ago, as far as we can tell, or care…

Glibertarians! — can’t live with ’em, can’t responsibly allow them to live in the kind of winner-take-all dystopias they so love to yammer about. Or, rather, force the rest of us to live in those dystopias, with the HOA enforcing shoot-to-kill security outside the gated communities of Galt Gulch and St. Ayn’s Haven.

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Song of the week

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As always, from Can’t Explain.

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Kid Creole & the Coconuts, “Dear Addy” (1981)
I like just about all the Kid Creole & the Coconuts stuff, particularly through the ’80s悠 saw them live in 1986 and they were way, way better than I had any right to expect. Probably Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places is my favorite album, with its whacked-out concept about a sea voyage whose songs borrow rhythms and various stylings from all the ports in which the traveler stops, including elements of Broadway, calypso, cha cha, disco, funk, Latin, reggae, rock, and more, all served up in bite-size pop songs. “Dear Addy” is the the album closer, a very lovely ballad about sailing the world ’round only to find that the one waiting for you at home is the one you love and want. Or you hope she’s waiting for you anyway, the source of the song’s bracing tension.

First foreign place: “Going Places”
More stuff at Can’t Explain.

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I still see the rays of light every time

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I figured we could use a shiny, happy thread to bring people together after the tragic events of the past few days. Not long ago in the comments, I discovered that many of you, like me, enjoy musical movies. What’s your favorite musical scene from a musical movie? I’m using musical movie a bit loosely, so “Fabulous Baker Boys”, that Johnny Cash movie, etc. counts, but you can’t go with a music-backed scene from a movie that isn’t in any sense a musical. That means no Joe Pesci shooting up houses over the Devo cover of “Satisfaction”, no lingering shots of dead bodies in meat lockers while “Layla” plays in the background, no Jack tormenting DiCaprio to “Let It Loose”.

I’m going to start with Michelle Pfeiffer taking the gum out of her mouth to sing “More Than You Know” in the “Fabulous Baker Boys”. Not the greatest movie, but I love Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer, and I saw it at a time in my life when brooding and self-absorption were very important to me. I still watch this scene about once a month for no reason.

And then the great “Make ‘Em Laugh” from “Singin’ In The Rain”. One of my favorite movies, the first time I ever saw it on the big screen was at the Red Vic in San Francisco. My friend and I were supposed to see some serious movie about non-English-speaking people killing each other or starving that had come highly recommended by whoever the early ’90s Bay Area equivalent of Manhola Dhargis/A.O. Scott was (Mick LaSalle, if memory serves). We walked by the Red Vic and both stopped when we saw “Singin’ In The Rain”. It took a minute for either of us to admit we’d rather see it than sit through Oscar porn, but we finally did.

What are your favorites? Bonus points for anyone who mentions Les Parapluies de Cherbourg here.

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So I See There Was Some Drama Here This Weekend

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Before I get any more emails and tweets, let’s put this latest blog drama to bed. Rather than a long free-form post, we’ll just do bullet points.

1.) I have no idea what Anne Laurie was thinking. It’s bad form to flame another front-pager over something as silly someone being banned, and I wish she hadn’t done it. If she won’t, I’ll apologize to ABL and company. I’m sorry.

2.) I find it amazing that all of this was over Cornerstone. Cornerstone isn’t some noble do-gooder speaking truth to power, he’s just a troll. He’ll take one side of an argument, and if that doesn’t get people sufficiently riled up, he’ll take the other side. This is obvious to any of you who do not have him pied- he usually just trumpets whatever other commenter has managed to piss the most people off in any given thread.

3.) To the 500 people on twitter and email who have written to inform me that “ANNE LAURIE TOOK A BIG DUMP ALL OVER ABL AND COMPANY,” thank you so much for your astute observation. I noticed, because if you will look at her post, she also took some time to crap on my chest. But thank you for your concern and your willingness to offer unsolicited advice on how to run the blog.

4.) To the same crowd who have been screaming at me to delete the post, I’ll remind you that we do not do that. In fact, the last time I tried to assert editorial control like that, I deleted an ABL post that I thought was passing poorly sourced attacks on Hamsher. The outcry (no doubt from the some of the same people now demanding I delete Anne’s post) was such that I immediately reinstated the post, and have decided WE WILL NEVER DELETE POSTS HERE.

5.) No. I’m not going to ban Anne, no I am not going to publicly browbeat her, etc. We all do something stupid from time to time. In the future, I would ask all front pagers if they are confused about why someone has been banned or given a time-out, they email me or the other front pagers and find out what has happened.

Finally, and this has nothing to do with Anne’s post, but does have to do with some of the things I have seen at this blog- I never really understood racism until ABL joined the staff. I’ve seen some of the most horrifying things directed at ABL in comments, and I have done my best to delete them from the spam filter before any of you ever see them. I’m not talking about the stuff you all perceive as racism from time to time in the comments. I’m talking pure unadulterated filth by commenters named “SUBHUMAN,” spewing bile that would make attendees at a Klan rally blush. So for those of you who think ABL is just some drama queen, you haven’t seen some of the shit she has been subjected to. Even then, I’d bet ABL would somewhat agree that she is a bit of a drama queen. Everyone who blogs is.

So everyone simmer down now. We have Republicans to beat.

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Song of the week

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Rusty Zinn, “The Chill” (2000)
Here’s the reason I use shuffle. I’ve got a handful of those great Alligator collections but somehow never quite get around to giving them a proper listen. (What’s the appropriate occasion? Maybe Labor Day weekend?) But when the right song pops up at the right moment and bops you on the head with itself, as this one did to me this week, it’s all kinds of the right kismet you want to hope for. I don’t know much more about Rusty Zinn other than that he’s from somewhere around the Sacramento environs of northern California. But I do know that, once started, he’s a slick, fine guitar player and that he’s got a great band too.

Another nice one from Alligator: Charlie Musselwhite, “Leaving Your Town”
More stuff at Can’t Explain.

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