Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Come on, man.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

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

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

This fight is for everything.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

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On Getting Older

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I was bitching all day yesterday because I slept so well that I woke up with a stiff back and figured it was just one of those things you’ll get used to ass you age. Later on in the day, last night, actually, I watched Real Time with Bill Maher, and Gloria Steinem was on as a guest interviewee.

First things first. She has aged very well. She looks better than most 50 years olds around here. So whatever she is doing to take care of herself, it is working. Second, she said two things, one of which I thought made no sense and was kind of regrettable, the second I found to be interesting. Here is the quote:

“Women are more for [Clinton] than men are. …First of all, women get more radical as we get older, because we experience. …Not to over-generalize, but … men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, women get more radical because they lose power as they age.

And, when you’re young, you’re thinking, where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie…”

I honestly don’t know what she was thinking or means with the second part, and I will let others deal with that. Bill tried to let her backtrack, but she never really cleared up her point. Whatever, she’s old, and sometimes older people say silly shit. I’m much younger and I say silly shit all the time.

But to the other point, about men getting older and men getting more conservative, I suppose that is true. But then I thought about it, and just the opposite is happening with me. I suppose I have more power, but I never really think I wield it. I guess what I don’t understand why people would get more conservative as they amass power unless it is just out of simple self-interest and greed. I think I am getting more and more liberal with every day. I still have traces of a well discussed (here, at least) authoritarian streak, but I think if you ask the other writers here, that’s certainly not evident with our dealings regarding the website. I basically just say write what you want, whatever blows your trumpet, just don’t break things. I honestly can’t think of maybe more than a few instances when I said no to something (other than rating or up/down voting comments).

I guess I just don’t know why people WOULD get more conservative. Every day I learn a little bit more, and I see more bullshit. Every single day, you can watch the news and watch someone getting shafted economically, someone getting hosed by a corporation or insurance agency. Every day you can watch the cops beat or shoot someone in the street. Every single day some motherfucker like Martin Shkreli comes up with a scheme to fuck someone over- and more often than not, gets away with it. Every day I see someone around here hosting a spaghetti dinner or something to pay for someone’s CANCER treatment. I watch companies and governments pollute and no one gets punished. Every day you can read about someone robbing someone’s pension or fucking people out of their medical insurance or ripping people off- legally. It just doesn’t make sense to me why someone wouldn’t get more liberal, more reactionary as they age. You literally have to go through life with your eyes closed to think the status quo is working.

Maybe people are under the illusion it’s just going to happen to the others. They’re protected. That makes no sense to me. If people are going to have the giant brass balls to pollute an entire fucking city’s water to save a few bucks and then not have the decency to kill themselves or at the very least resign and show up at the courthouse and plead guilty to something, anything, trust me, they are going to have no problem doing it to you, too. Out of control cops aren’t just shooting black people. The justice system will fuck you over no matter what color you are. God isn’t going to help you. You may think you are financially secure or maybe even rich, but that’s not real money. Real money and real power is killing 30+ people in a mining accident that you made sure happen, and then getting maybe probation.

I don’t know how to end this. I guess I just don’t understand how people could get more conservative as they age unless they are a scumbag greedhead, part of the 1% and know they are safe from whatever, really damned stupid, or a sociopath. Or some combination of them all. I just don’t get it. How are they winning?

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The Kids Are All Right

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Yesterday started sadly so I thought I’d post something fun and tender to start the day today. We saw Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle over the weekend. (Thanks Alamo Drafthouse!) Tati was a postwar French amalgam of Charlie Chaplin and Samuel Beckett. (Seriously, they played a short before the movie featuring David Lynch saying so.) His movies are sweet and weird and moving and funny all at the same time.

The scene that elicited the most guffaws needs no explanation:

I can imagine our H. erectus ancestor kids pulling the same prank a million years ago, and whoever succeeds us a million years from now doing the same.

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Open Thread

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Someone said it’s been all doom and gloom here, so I took a picture of Steve this afternoon while I was working on some stuff:

steve

That’s a pretty handsome damned cat.

I’ve been kind of mad at myself for a few days about the way I treated a woman at the airport. Well, I’m mad at myself, but if I replay it in my head, I never come up with a scenario in which I don’t react the same way. At any rate, I was dropping my sister off at the airport in Pittsburgh. For departing flights, all the airlines are all in a row, and Annie was flying Delta, which was for some reason or another the first one as you arrive. I pulled up behind a car that was currently unloading, and was half in the road, and half behind her, but the right side of my car was right up next to one of those concrete dividers, so Annie could not get out.

So I waited for a minute, then another minute, and then finally this 60 y/o or so woman got out of the car, her passenger got out, and they slowly unloaded, chatted some more, and finally, he walked of and she got in her driver seat. This too about five minutes. I was kind of proud of myself, actually, that I hadn’t already blown a gasket, because I was unable to back up and go to another spot because of oncoming traffic. I was at this woman’s mercy. Finally, she got in, took a while, put her seat belt on. Then she put on her hazards and just sat there.

I gave a polite honk. I waited. I gave another polite honk. I waited. I gave a full on honk. Still she sat there. Finally, I got out of the car to see if something was wrong, she saw me approaching, and turned her head to avoid eye contact. I knocked on the window, and said “are you” and se cut me off and said “I’m fine.” That’s when I lost it and yelled “I don’t give a shit how you are lady I just want you to move your god damned car so I can get in.”

She then grudgingly move forward two feet. It was enough to pull forward to open the passenger door and get Annie out, so I unloaded her, got in my car, and flipped the old lady off as I drove away.

That’s where I am now. I know I shouldn’t have lost my temper and yelled at some old woman, but at the same time, I can’t think of going through that situation and having me react in a different way. People are just so damned oblivious to what is going on around them, and then when they do notice, they still don’t give a shit.

Why? Maybe she was waiting for her passenger, but I watched him get his luggage checked and walk in. Even then, she should have done what everyone else does since 9/11, which is drive to the airport gas station and wait for them to call.

Oh, and it goes without saying she was in a Mercedes.

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Democratic Debate Open Thread

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Document the oddities during the CBS debate that got repackaged as a national security debate.

Here is the CBS information

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(Inter)Sectional Confusion

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meryl-streep-teeJust read this Vox article by Alex Abad-Santos about a controversy involving Meryl Streep, who apparently sparked a Twitter outrage fest by wearing, along with fellow cast-members of a film about the British Suffragette movement, a t-shirt with the slogan “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave.”

The Vox article links to a Cosmo(!) essay by Gugu Mhlungu that’s critical of Streep because of the shirt (as well as other comments Streep made about feminism; she prefers to be called a “humanist,” apparently). Here’s an excerpt from Mhlungu’s essay:

The slogan comes from the famous speech by Pankhurst and the part from which the tee slogan is taken from is as follows:

‘Know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion. I would rather be a rebel than a slave.’

But taken out of context, it’s deeply problematic. Especially in the American context where during the American Civil War, the Confederates, who referred to themselves as ‘rebels’, came from the Southern slave states and fought for their right to own slaves. So Meryl appears to be wearing an item of clothing that says ‘I’d rather own a slave than be one’.

Emphasis mine. I roll my eyes along with Mhlungu at people who equivocate about the label “feminist,” which should be embraced by every person who believes women are fully human. But back to the shirt: Why isn’t the onus on the people who view the image sans context to find out the context before proceeding directly to outrage? It’s a fairly famous quote.

Abad-Santos also seems to assume that readers will share his view that wearing the shirt was an affront, or at least a PR debacle that Streep should have avoided:

Streep hasn’t commented on the shirt. She probably won’t, since Time Out has taken responsibility with its apology. But like the context of the quote, that apology pales in comparison with the image of the most recognizable and respected American actress of the past 30 years wearing a T-shirt her publicist shouldn’t have cleared.

And Mhlungu ends with this:

Although probably well intentioned, this Suffragettes movie campaign shows why intersectionality is so important if our feminism will mean anything.

I thought I understood what intersectionality means, but I guess I don’t, or at least not in the way Mhlungu and Abad-Santos understand it. I get that oppression around race and gender can’t be fully understood as separate experiences because their combined effect is greater than the individual components. I also get that our feminist forebears weren’t inclusive and that too many still aren’t and that we should be.

But I don’t understand why it’s considered insulting or wrong or tone deaf for people in the UK — which is a whole other country, after all — to use words like “rebel” and “slave” without considering the context of the American Civil War, particularly when the use is related to a famous quote by a non-American historical figure (whom Streep was portraying in the movie, doubtlessly with an absolutely flawless British accent).

My initial take is that the outrage is a stupid example of the social media “call-out culture” that I find annoying as hell as I settle into my dotage. But! I sometimes find when I’m rolling my eyes at kids today with their stupid tweeting and misplaced outrage, etc., I’m actually missing something important — particularly when it’s an issue involving race — because middle-aged white lady.

So, I’m asking with all sincerity: What am I missing here?

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Things I would like to see happen

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It seems that even reactionary neo-fascist conservative networks do not appreciate Donald Trump like the Donald thinks he deserves. You know what Trump should do? He should start his own network. Talk about catering to a guy’s strengths. It could fill a very profitable niche in that narrow gap between FOX and an enraged eighty year old screaming incoherently at neighbors in his underpants. Yoooge! Classy! Trump could use a friendly outlet to help his third party run (Kennedy should see no problem there), and it would really show up those PC bastards at FOX. Just a thought.

***update***

Take the next logical step, Donald.

TRUMP: I think they cover me terribly. Fox News? I think they cover me terribly and I’m winning by double digits on every poll. So I don’t know. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t think I get good treatment from Fox. They certainly cover me a lot.

[…]

I think they give me very bad treatment. I think Fox treats me terribly. And a lot of the people that like me think they treat me terribly. But I don’t think — I mean, what – you think I was asked nice easy questions? The other guys are saying, “What are you going to do about jobs?” Another one saying, “Do you love God?” Another one says something else. I get these questions like, what’s going on here? And, yet, I won in every single poll of the debate, I won. I won from Drudge. I won in Time magazine. I won all the — everybody thought I won the debate. But I certainly had the worst questions, the most unfair questions. And, you know, I like Fox. I like it, but, no, I think they treat me very poorly.

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