Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, March 10, 2023
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92 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Robert Blake (Baretta) has died. He was 89. I recall him being acquitted of the murder of his wife in the criminal trial, but found liable in the civil trial, just like O.J.
I am thinking hard about an ayahuasca thing.
The problem is they are packaged as “tours” with “guides”. I have zero interest in a guided tour. I would heartily enjoy a nice person giving me a heads up about what to expect, but when push comes to shove I want to do that alone neath a starry sky alone. I sure as fuck do not want a guide.
Once or twice a year I venture out to a place next to nowhere with as little light pollution as possible in the US, shroom hard, and gawk at the stars. It is a nice pleasurable process I love that also cleans accumulated gunk out of my head that needs to be gone.
I am currently prone towards anxiety and related crap that needs a good beat back and weeding out every few months. That shit accumulates if you’re not paying attention and starts to impede daily decision making.
I need a brain reset every few months. Clear the overloaded buffers. Stare at the stars.
Nothing against neo-hippies. I’m fairly sure they are good, decent people. I have no problem with them. I just would prefer to be alone and unguided during. Comprehensive advice before, and possibly after, but not during.
Don’t know yet. Still thinking it through.
I have zero interest in a guided tour. Give me a clear view of a light pollution-free sky and I’ll figure it out.
‘A Texas utopia’: Elon Musk is building a town in Central Texas
Company towns have a long history in this country. And elsewhere in the world. Not always great results.
I immediately recalled reading “The Arms Of Krupp” by William Manchester. In Essen, Germany the Krupp family provided housing and social services to the “Kruppianer”.
From Wikipedia:
@Scott:
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
This goes to a long running debate in this comments section, of interest to only a few: The US released an intelligence analysis that points to Ukraine or pro-Ukraine actors blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines. The linked article gives some background and then discusses the analysis. I’ve long thought that the only country with an interest in putting the pipeline out of commission and whose risk/reward balance sheet favored action was Ukraine. I know people here have pointed to Russia or the US or even the Europeans but it seems to me that the only effect was to end the possibility that the pipeline could have come online this winter and therefore it motivated the Germans and others to move heaven and earth to find alternative supplies.
A lot about this is puzzling however, not least of which is why did the US release this at all and, given that we did, why now? The only thing I can think of is that it was in response to Seymour Hersch’s article blaming the US, but Hersch is damaged goods at this point, whose former glory has been eclipsed by a series of poorly sourced and sensationalistic pieces that led nowhere.
The best places I know of in the US to get a clear view of the sky with minimal light pollution is Boundary Waters National Park in Minnesota, Teddy Roosevelt NP in North Dakota, and the Big Bob in Montana.
Up until cities and especially street lights, this is what our ancestors experienced nightly. A nigh infinite sky full of stars. That is our assured loss. I like and prefer civilization, but we lost something to get it.
Nowadays, in town, with streetlights I can pick out a few dozen very bright stars. A planet or two. In town you can see a few dozen.
In the back end of nowhere you can see infinity.
Why is it that anytime Biden stumbles the news media, OTB inclusive, runs articles about this age, yet when McConnell trips and hits his head at a hotel, it’s crickets on his age? Additionally, if a dem was at a hotel – there would be all kinds of accusations as to why they were at a hotel and they wouldn’t accept for a private dinner without evidence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/09/trump-new-york-grand-jury/
@HelloWorld!: Excellent question–and one that I’ve been wondering about as well, particularly since this isn’t even the first time that McConnell has *seriously injured* himself by falling. He broke something (arm or shoulder?) last time. This time it’s a concussion that requires hospitalization and observation. Crickets. That black-and-blue arm of his? Same.
Long running debate in this comments section, of interest to only a few, Part Deux: This article is about Chinese State sponsored corporate espionage, but it contains an interesting tidbit about France. At one point in a long effort to capture a Chinese spymaster the US is manipulating their resource to lure the spymaster to a European country that would detain and extradite him. For reasons not clear from the article, the US had set up a false trip-to-France narrative, but then later decided that France could not be trusted.
This goes to my long running debate with JohnSF about the Australian nuclear sub deal, where I contend the real story is that the US and the UK were able to peel Australia away from the French policy with respect to France, which was basically “every man for himself, let China take the little guys, and France plays ‘reasonable middle man’ to get special treatment from the Chinese”. France has changed their tune a bit recently, but obviously not enough that the US trusts them on China.
One final thing on that Chinese espionage story above. One of the things I love about foreign travel is the opportunity to see assumptions I didn’t even know I had start to crumble. When the US was trying to convince the Chinese spymaster to travel to Belgium the story they used sounded completely plausible to him, but would set off huge alarm bells to any American:
This is not to belittle Xu’s cultural understanding, but rather makes me wonder what my unknown and wrong assumptions are about what “the Chinese” are like, despite my living there for four years.
@de stijl: When I was a kid (in the 1960s) we could see the Milky Way quite clearly from our small city streets. Not a thing anymore. I remember stepping out of a car in the mountains of northern New York state in the early ‘70s and gasping at the number of stars. But the two best places were at 12,000 feet in the Himalayas and on the Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota where the lack of light pollution or humidity made the night sky as clear as could be.
Giving the middle finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules
I did not have that on my headline bingo card.
Of course, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, even if I am an atheist.
@MarkedMan: Added context for clarity and didn’t reread, and only now realized I turned a sentence above into mush. My kingdom for an edit button!
@HelloWorld!: @Jen: Because replacing McConnell if something happens is not nearly as momentous as replacing the President.
@HelloWorld!: @Jen: Oddly, I can’t find a single instance where I posted on Biden’s falling down. I indirectly reference his bicycle accident in a July 2022 post defending him from the constant “he’s too old” charges.
I have written numerous posts over the years about our leaders, decidedly including McConnell, being really damn old. But I tend not to write a lot about the day-to-day activities surrounding the Senate Minority Leader. Indeed, it’s been years since I’ve written even about the day-to-day activities of the President.
@Mikey: My father-in-law grew up in a company town. He told my wife “Sixteen Tours” was true-to-life.
Sixteen Tons, dammit!
@Scott:
St. Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.
@Mikey: @SC_Birdflyte:
Great minds and all that, but maybe you guys should worry.
@de stijl:
Maybe a queer focused retreat would be open to discussing your particular needs so that the guidance part would be minimal or non-existent? My understanding of those retreats is that the guidance is part of the cultural aspects of ayahuasca. In places where it’s “legal” it may not be possible to get around it entirely.
For what it’s worth I’m interested in going the exact opposite direction with Psilocybin. Uncontrolled psychedelic experiments have been massively helpful in controlling my PTSD and depression. I’d like to try that merged with some intensive therapy sessions. I think that would be very helpful.
@Scott:
I see your point, but I think McConnell’s continued existence is the only thing keeping the Republican freak show from overrunning the Senate. The second he’s gone half that place is going up in flames. Sen. Scott will be a firehose of jet fuel. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of rancid dildos.
@de stijl: I know of many such places, but the best night skies I’ve ever seen is in the Guadalupe mountains. High elevations, desert air, the perfect combo with no artificial lighting. I saw a Perseid meteor shower there that was the greatest light show I’ve ever seen.
@James Joyner: I wasn’t dinging you (or this blog) on the lack of mention…more a general sense that while his fall is being reported, there’s nowhere near the AH HA HE’S TOO OLD deluge I saw (across a lot of channels) when Biden tripped. Apologies if my comment seemed directed at you/this blog; that was not my intent!
Xi Jinping has gotten his 3rd term. Another official dictator for life.
All hail Chairman Xi. /s
@Scott: Ever so slightly disagree. McConnell is the longest-serving Republican Senate leader in the country’s history, and he has a big impact on the functioning of the Senate. There’s also the point of severity–as I noted above, McConnell’s falls have resulted in real, significant injuries, whereas IIRC, all Biden needs to do is trip/stumble and it’s all “he’s too old!”
Better Call Saul:
About the darkest sky close to Earth is on the far side of the Moon at night during a Lunar eclipse. There are few native light sources, the Sun is blocked by the Solar System’s most massive rocky planet, and earthlight is blocked by the bulk of the Moon.
Of course, it can be a tad expensive getting there.
@HelloWorld!: In 2015 D House Speaker Harry Reid was quite seriously injured when a Theraband, an elastic exercise band, broke, throwing him off balance into furniture. It was appropriately well reported , but the RW went nuts with conspiracies about it being a beating by Vegas mobsters or something.
@Joe: I was born and raised in ND. On clear nights the Milky Way was quite visible. Dyam the galaxy is big. And only a grain of sand in the universe.
@Joe:
I knew a woman from fairly central Paris. Born and raised. Her family owned a gelato shop in touristy area.
She was part of a group that went on a camping trip to the Black Hills.
My friend’s GF, but I spoke better French than him. (He’d met her in Germany.) She was astonished at how long it took to get there from Minneapolis. And got a bit annoyed and petulant about it, frankly. Loudly.
She was well outside of her comfort zone and feeling quite vulnerable and her reaction registered as whining. Everyone in the vehicle was rolling their eyes at her whining, but no one said a word; Minnesotans are polite. Driving through South Dakota is visually boring, yes. Most of it between creekbeds is extraordinarily flat.
I find great beauty in emptiness and wide open spaces and I described to her what I saw and felt about the landscape in the equivalent of 2nd grade French. I could not conjugate a verb to save my soul beyond the simplest. She chilled out.
That night after food and fire and booze at the campground, she and Jon went down to the lake. Just down the hill below the crest so the fire was a minimal light pollutant.
She had never seen the night sky like that ever before. She was born city girl. Never seen it. It overwhelmed her. She wept.
Hey, no judgment! I weep too, everytime, but your very first time seeing the night sky in a very wild setting was utterly overwhelming to her. Europeans don’t really understand distance, like, at all. An hour away drive is a major trip..
Outside of Northern Norway and Finland most Europeans have never seen a true no light pollution night sky. It’s too densely packed with cities and towns and villages all with streetlights shining bright.
She was dumbstruck, then wept. I empathasized. It is always overwhelming. I love it.
FTR: I am disappearing to NOLA for some serious granddaughters time for the next 11 or 12 days. Enjoy the peace and quiet my absence will bring you for as long as it lasts. I will be back.
@gVOR08: Here at my place I can see the Milky Way every night if the skies are clear. I do have some light pollution in the west (Sullivan) and North (St Clair). It pisses me off but living in an even more remote place has too man draw backs to justify it.
“DeSantis book bans – WashPo”
snip
As someone who likes stories of media bias as much as the next guy, I can’t agree with a criticism based on differing coverage of McConnell or Biden regarding age and health issues. A Senator, even the Minority Leader, is never going to get the same attention as a president. Also, his age isn’t unprecedented to his job to anywhere near the degree it is with Biden. He does happen to have been the oldest Majority Leader we’ve ever had. (I had to look that up; I wasn’t sure.) But Senators in their 80s have been commonplace for a long time (we even had at least one who reached 100 while in office, Strom Thurmond). So it’s something that at the very least people are more used to. And let’s not kid ourselves that McConnell’s job is in any way as intense and demanding as that of a US President. Or particularly consequential, for that matter, especially under divided government.
I do agree that the media get hooked on narratives, such as “Biden is old,” which lead to double standards in their coverage compared with other politicians. But this particular comparison/contrast is just too apples-and-oranges to make much of a useful point over.
@charon:
All the vague new anti-abortion laws scare doctors and hospitals the same way.
@Joe:
Up until the early 2000’s my family owned a cottage on Lake Wisconsin. You could see the Milky Way from our pier (still can, it’s all weekend-summer homes).
We were at the end of a very long J-shaped road. On the hill in the middle was a retreat owned by the Catholic Church, and they ran a summer kids program called the “I Get the Window Club”.
Every Sunday during summer break, they would take a bus down to poor neighborhoods in Chicago, and bring up a load of kids–one per seat; every kid gets to sit by the window. These were kids who had never been outside of the city. The priest was a family friend, and he’d tell of the kids getting wide-eyed as they drove out of the city and into rural Wisconsin.
The first night there, he’d take them out into the field to see the stars. Not a light in sight for miles, and the full Milky Way above. Most of them freaked out. The same when he took them down to the public-access pier to go canoeing and swimming in the lake. They’d never been in anything but a public pool.
By the end of the week, they didn’t want to go home.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I envy your experiences knowing such places.
@Scott:
In general, I wouldn’t want to work for Musk, but if I did, I can’t imagine anything worse that living in his company town, surrounded by co-workers. The WSJ article on this mentioned that Musk is looking to target the monthly rental (for what? a double wide?) at $800, while the average rent in a nearby community is $2200. The added $1400/month would be money well spent to live elsewhere. Though I expect that he’d consider it dis-loyal, not to live in his community.
@Mikey: I recently re-listened to that song and couldn’t help but think it sounds just like a Marxist critique of capitalism, especially of factory labor.
Mexican cartel hands over 5 of its own for the killing shooting of Americans this week.
@HelloWorld!: FWIW, I got a news alert about it on my phone.
@Beth:
There was a local church here in Des Moines that got busted by the feds about a year back. An ayahuasca church.
Initial thought: that is so fucking cool!
Thought about it a second later: Oh, yeah. That’s probably a weird cult and that dude’s congregants were probably victims of financial theft, emotional abuse, and serial sexual abuse.
Yesterday, I came upon this headline: “Senate GOP Close to Landing Top Recruit in Montana.” Specifically:
I googled the name, and the first hit was a Wikipedia article on an old, retired ice hockey player from Canada. Not the same guy, in case you were wondering.
But this businessman and military vet being eyed for the Montana Senate race? Crickets. He has no entry on Wikipedia. Or Ballotpedia. Very limited information on him, period, outside of the current articles. So this looks like a lot of hype.
And no, I’m not saying he can’t win. I think it’s going to be challenging for Tester to win reelection regardless of his opponent. And who knows, maybe this will be the guy who takes him down. But calling him a “top recruit” when he’s so little known strikes me as a sign of desperation on the part of Republican insiders, and a clue that they’re not confident about their chances in this race. When I first read the article, I thought it was discouraging news for Dems; now I’m leaning toward the opposite conclusion.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Oh it absolutely is. Whether it is an intentional Marxist critique or the author coming to a similar observation on his own is debatable.
Much, if not most of the pro-labor music was drawn from the folk culture of the black field hands under Jim Crow and before abolition. The music of the black community, bumped up against the Scotch/Irish traditions found in white Appalachian music. Each group, despite the racism and enforced segregation, recognized similarities in their plights.
There are several documentaries on the emergence of music through the folk traditions by Alan Lomax, that were produced for public television and available on YouTube.
A judge has ruled that the grab-em-by-the pussy tape can be used at the E. Jean Carroll trial.
Trump must be volcanic with rage.
Another strong month of job numbers.
311,000 new jobs, 203,000 were predicted.
33.8m jobs – 16 yrs Clinton, Obama
12.4m jobs – 25 months Biden
1.9m jobs – 16 yrs Bush, Bush, Trump
@Sleeping Dog: I doubt it was conscious/intentional. It just is striking to me.
@CSK:
When you’re a judge, they let you do it.
When I explained to my therapist about the psilocybin camping trips she generally, actively did not discourage, at all. Came as close to endorsing as state laws allowed her. I think that is really cool. In my state psilocybin is currently illegal. She did not discourage future camping trips.
Thinking about it, I’ve never actually used mushrooms in the state I live in. I camp out of state. Only because the camping sites in-state don’t fit the bill of what I am looking for.
I don’t do any drugs. My alcohol use is pretty minimal. I stopped smoking. All things considered, I am a very good boy when it comes to substance usage.
@Sleeping Dog: Woody Guthrie has plenty to say about capitalism. The conclusion of Pretty Boy Floyd, for example:
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
HA!!! Just as I predicted yesterday:
http://www.newsweek.com/jay-leno-never-gave-donald-trump-permission-to-use-his-letter-1786926
I can almost guarantee that neither Trump nor his “publisher” ever got permission to reproduce the other 149 letters either.
@CSK:
It would be delightful to see 150 lawsuits for violation of copywrites lodged against TFG.
@Beth:
Go for it!
I know this for certain, for me anyway, when I come home from a camping trip that includes a “special” night out under the stars, I am more open, more curious, more bold, more resilient.
The effect lasts for weeks. I feel freer.
I will never be truly free from PTSD, anxiety, agoraphobia, avoidance, but camping trips make me cope better and I actively behave better, per my experience at least.
I act way above baseline in behavior for about 3 weeks to a month usually. Which is really cool and welcome.
Anecdata, I know, but it supports the hypothesis. It works for me.
@CSK:
Unfortunately, I’m quite sure that none of those people registered their letters with the copyright office, so there can’t be any statutory damages awarded, only restitution (which will be zero) and getting the book pulled from sale.
It would have been really fun to see Trump get hit with $22.5 in statutory damages for infringement. I’ll settle for embarrassment and lawyer fees, though.
@Mu Yixiao:
Oh, hell, I can dream, can’t I?
Nonetheless I too will settle for the book being pulled and pulped, enormous legal fees, and extreme public humiliation.
@Joe:
Woody was never a member of the Communist Party, but for several years he had a regular column in the Daily Worker.
He grew up in a pretty middle class family. IIRC, his father had an insurance agency, but his youth was loaded with trauma, a sister was killed in a kitchen fire, his mother institutionalized due to Huntington’s disease, as Woody would be in the 50’s. That and the family lost everything in the dust bowl, he definitely was radicalized. Except for some of the earliest, most of his songs have a political message.
@Joe:
Ditto on the Cheyenne River reservation, and the Pine Ridge (SD) , where I spent a lot of time.
@Scott:
Elmo is jealous of his dad’s ability to get rich off coerced labor in apartheid South Africa when Elmo has to deal with all these annoying voluntary workers that can leave when he treats them like slaves.
His real interest in a Mars colony is to create pool of indentured servants who depend on him for everything and thus are captive to his every whim.
@OzarkHillbilly: Enjoy yourself!
@Mu Yixiao:
My uncle owned a cabin north of Spooner. We would go once or twice a summer. Northern Wisconsin so even July or August the lake was cool.
Me and my cousins would run around like idiots. Swim like idiots. Dive off the swimming raft like idiots. The adults got stinking drunk on shore in their beach chairs. Especially Uncle Bob.
But Uncle Bob was a good drunk adult which was new to me and so welcome. Happy and jolly and not crazy freaky manic scary. A revelation to me.
A primitive cabin. A hand pump. An outhouse. We kids mostly peed in the lake, but pooping was in the spooky outhouse. Whatever you do, don’t peek down the hole.
I peeked down the hole.
Outhouses were how we did our elimination business well into to 20th century.
Kids back then were braver, or smart enough to never look down the hole.
BTW, it is a massive pile of poop and piss with worms and icky bugs working the surface for nutrients. It writhes with organic scavenging. Either no legs at all, or 6 legs, or eight.
I strongly encourage to never look down. It makes Nietzche’s Abyss look like a Sunday School picnic.
The swimming and goofing around was fun, though.
Never look down the hole of an outhouse!
@Scott: I wish our plutocrats were more aware of why Bismarck felt he needed to implement a social welfare state. The good of the country doesn’t seem to enter into their thinking. Maybe a little fear would help. It’s a long time since I read The Arms of Krupp. I still though recall that there was a minor functionary in the factories with an unpleasant job. Something like klosetpapiereninspektor. The head Krupp at the time was so afraid of socialism that this worthy was tasked with retrieving and checking used toilet paper to make sure no one had written socialist propaganda on it. Although perhaps Krupp didn’t regard it as so distasteful. I think it was the same one who thought the smell of manure was healthy and had his stables butted up to his mansion, sharing a ventilation system.
ETA – I hadn’t read de stijl immediately above when I wrote this. Don’t even look down the hole of a porta-potty, which tends to way less creepy crawlies.
@de stijl:
One of the happiest days in my life was when we got indoor plumbing and burned the outhouse at our cabin.
@charon:
Ugh. Members of this astoundingly mis-named group often speak at my local school board meetings. Invariably it’s little but bigotry and misrepresentation and pieces of literature torn out of all context. Fortunately they’re limited to two minutes.
“Appears?” “Invites?” When will the media report this as it actually is? Enough of this weasel-word bullshit. Everyone–the fascists who enact these laws, the unfortunate educators who will run afoul of them, and the rest of us who will have to deal with the results of the enforced ignorance they will create–know exactly what this is about.
@Scott: Say what you will about the Musk company town but “Snailbrook” is a great name.
Now I want my neighborhood in Seattle renamed from Fremont to Snailmont. This would also mean that the spot between us and Ballard that is currently called Frellard would be Snail Lard.
@HelloWorld!: Obviously McConnell was pushed down by his gay lover after some sort of argument over marginal interest rates turned physical. Democrats don’t harp on it though, and build it up to conspiracy theories because we are far more tolerant of these things.
@Gustopher: Would you happen to be posting these theories at large circulation commentary venues, and if not, why not?
@Just nutha ignint crackeree:
The Hoft Bros. would print it as fact at The Gateway Pundit.
@Gustopher:
Ooooo! Ooooo! I know this one!
Lindsey Graham?
Kevin Drum has a post up about how Norway wants to define blockers, hormones and surgery treatments for trans children as “experimental”. To slow it down.
I left this comment:
I also left this one:
When I was a kid my dad took us out for a star party once. Will never forget it. Table Mountain.
This should be on everyone’s bucket list IMO. It’s free, just have to show up with warm clothes and ideally the minimal camping ability to spend the night. The equipment those hobbyists pack is amazing, some of their home-built telescopes came in 30 foot trailers. Be sure to bring a small flashlight with red cellophane taped over it because you will become very unpopular if you ruin everybody’s night vision for half an hour with white light though.
Everybody is eager to have people look through their telescopes, and somehow you just have to be viewing a piece of the sky so small you can cover it with a pencil tip held at arm’s length and see a cloud of galaxies in it to get the humbling scale registered properly. However the funnest ones were actually the guys who had very large binoculars on tripods. The rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter..clear as a bell.
We laid out on lawn chairs to watch the summer meteor shower in sleeping bags.
@Jay L Gischer:
I can’t speak about Norway, but here in the US I’ve been hearing this talking point from some of the same people who back ivermectin as a treatment for Covid.
@Jay L Gischer:
One thing to remember here is the actual evidence based treatment is that trans teens should be put on HRT when puberty begins so they can experience the age appropriate development for their preferred gender.
Puberty blockers were already the compromise position: fine, we’ll force them to wait until adulthood to go through puberty, but at least protect that option. And now having gotten that concession anti-trans people are using it as an anchoring point to demand further concessions.
We may not know everything, but there is a ton of evidence as to what the best available treatment option is. It’s not doing nothing until puberty is already complete. This is just a blatant appeal to ignorance by people whose actual goal is to deter transition by making it absolutely as difficult as they can.
@Stormy Dragon:
And one bitterly ironic detail is that these restrictions on gender affirming care always include an exception for intersex infants, because none of the anti-trans concern trolls ever see a need to take a wait and see approach in that case.
@Jay L Gischer:
Simple, because there is supposed to be a finite amount of Trans people and we are already over that number by 8 billion.
For what it’s worth, I spent over 100k of Blue Shield’s money to fix what puberty did to me.
Also also, do they propose stopping Cis kids from being on puberty blockers? You know, the population that these medicines were originally produced for?
@Michael Reynolds: Only goes to show that drug cartel kingpins don’t want to live in dystopic hell holes any more than anyone else does. Kidnapping tourists distorts the social climate and is bad for business. They have to take care of their communities just like any other civic-minded groups.
@Steven L. Taylor: @Sleeping Dog: Wikipedia gives credit for the song to Merle Travis (no relation to Randy, who took Travis as a stage name), and the article about him lists no links to leftist or progressive politics. The lines cited in today’s discussion are credited as having come from letters written by family members and to statements of their coworkers. What was most interesting about the song is that it seems to have been recorded, covered, or used as source material for performance pieces almost every year since it was originally recorded.
@Kurtz: ROTFLMAO! 😀 😀 😀
@HelloWorld!:
Because turtles are well known to live to enormous ages with little change to their intellect, athleticism, or demeanour. 🙂
@Gustopher:
Some smart partisan bunnies were up in arms over a photo of Biden taken in Kyiv. He had a bruise on his forehead! He fell! He is old, frail, infirm, demented, unwell.
Umm, dudes. Do you know what day it is in the Catholic calendar? It’s Ash Wednesday. The mark on his forehead is palm ash applied by a priest. The photo was taken the afternoon of Ash Wednesday. Practicing Catholic dude.
I’m not Catholic, I’m not even religious, and even I know Ash Wednesday.
One day I was downtown at work on break having a smoke and saw a guy walking by with schmutz on his forehead looked like a plus sign. Kept my mouth shut – not my business.
Ten seconds later a lady walked by with a plus sign. Aah!
Oh yeah, it’s spring, it’s Wednesday. Okay, got ya. Easter this weekend.
I was raised vaguely Lutheran – it didn’t take. I distinctly remember being force ganged into making crosses out of palm fronds one day. A church lady hovered over my shoulder to make sure I did it right. Iirc you had to knot the fronds in the middle. I think it was supposed to be a teaching moment. My take away was that my palm crosses were the best and my peers were pathetic losers tripping over their own shoelaces and church lady was hovering too close, fall back, Sarge!, and her overwhelming perfume smelled like lilac flowers soaked in vodka. Seriously, back the fuck up. I got this, church lady!
Lutherans don’t have priests they have pastors.
Ours was pretty obviously gay. Not a pederast as far as I knew. Kinda a putz.
He’d maxed out his career path at age 30. He was not climbing the hierarchy, the career ladder. He was vaguely adequate at his job. He gave off an air of I don’t really care. I’ll punch the clock, I guess.
We went for the big ones and in-between maybe once a month or so. Enough to keep her punch card current. It was a thing I got roped into every so often and had no say in the matter so I shut my trap and sat. Most Sundays she couldn’t be bothered.
There wasn’t a palm tree in at least 2000 miles of where we were. Somebody, somewhere makes a killing off of sending a gazillion palm fronds to churches every spring.
@MarkedMan:
And the US trusts Germany re. China? Hmm. 😉
The really crucial aspect of what motivates French policy a lot of the time that people often miss:
France does not trust the US.
That’s why they have spent enormous sums on maintaining a fully independent nuclear force and weapons systems production chains.
Partially dates back to WW2 and de Gaulle’s Free French; even left wingers who were cautious re. de Gaulle bridled at Roosevelt’s attitudes.
Even us Brits thought he was being silly on the subject.
More important: Suez. And again this applies even to French who were against the Suez adventure. Because the US treated allies pleas of vital interests as of no account.
A quote whose source I forget:
“Suez taught the British and French different lesson. The British, that we should never be separated from the American. The French, that they should never trust or be reliant upon the Americans.”
Never being separated was the UK baseline after Eden.
(The fall, indeed. It really is very ironic.)
And its culmination was Tony Blair, George Bush, and Iraq.
So, not a policy without pitfalls.
@de stijl:
Hence Catholics are purified.
Lutherans are pastorized.
😉
Sorreee…
@Kurtz:
Bad Kurtz! Bad! Stop it Right NOW! 🙂
@Scott:
Elon: “I shall build a Utopia!”
Minion: “Great news boss! Where shall it be? California? Mars?”
Elon: “TEXAS!”
Minion: “Err…”
Anyone following the SVB venture capital meltdown news?
It would take a heart of stone not to ROTFLYAO.
Because I’m only a dimwit Brit, but even I have a vague idea that when inflation is rising and, (REALLY IMPORTANT) central bank is ramping interest to curb inflation, financial strategies based on near-zero interest finance may start to look a bit iffy.
David Sacks:
Troy Esquivel:
Sean Tuffy:
Me: Won’t you DFF’s ever FL?
@de stijl:..Lutherans don’t have priests they have pastors.
I was baptized as an infant in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. By the time I was 12 years old I studied Luther’s Small Catechism and was confirmed. The first thing I got was a box of collection envelopes.
I always thought that a priest was Catholic or Episcopal clergy. Sometime in the last two years or so I stumbled on a reference to a Lutheran Priest.
“Can’t be” I said to myself.
I did some searching and stumbled on this and:
I’m sure glad my mom never knew about this when she was alive. A Lutheran Priest celebrating Mass would not have set well with her.
@Mister Bluster:
If memory serves, Lutheran clergy in Scandinavia are routinely referred to as priests.
In the Church of England, the “priest” vs “minister” (or similar: pastor, preacher etc) has often been cause for a theological punch-up.
@de stijl: Even more so. The fronds would probably be getting thrown away if they weren’t being split up into wands for Palm Sunday. They’re like dead head roses.
@JohnSF:
I read about it and flashed back to 2007-8.
Then further back to the 80s version of The Fly: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
@JohnSF:
Glad it’s funny to you. My company uses it and most of their assets are there. Hoping for the best, but…
Even aside from my personal situation, billions in assets tied up as the FDIC winds up a failed bank is not a good thing for the economy, and the impact is going to spread if companies start to miss payroll.
@Mister Bluster:
I attended Confirmation classes, too. Swedish Lutheran. The branch that later became the ELCA.
It was crazy – they let us out of school to attend. I was 10 or 11 and basically got 2 hours off every week for religious propaganda meant for impressionable tweens. I went to a public school. In the biggest system in the state. Excused us for two hours every week if we had a note. Catholic kids, too, got that free pass. Everybody else did not. This was the mid 70s. That was considered normal.
I was such a bad kid for confirmation class! I, unknowingly, was a heretic. Our “teacher” asked a question about the nature of God and my reply was that maybe our “God” is a small aspect of a larger ur-God that encompasses all religions. Protestant, Catholic, Islam, Hindu, Shinto, Buddhism, aboriginal belief systems, what if everyone is worshipping a shard, an aspect of the all-encompassing ur-God? Maybe should coalesce and share notes.
That was deeply, profoundly heretical. I did not realize. An authority figure asked a question so I spitballed, as I had been taught to do so in school.
I remember the confirmation teacher. Distinctly. She was busiest of busy-bodies imaginable. Up in everybody’s business even when she had zero say in the matter. A gatekeeper. Were she still alive a total Karen.
Oh my, did my conjecture blow up big-time! Teacher Karen ratted me out to I Kinda Don’t Give A Fuck pastor. She called my mom. A big freakin’ deal.
I learned my lesson which is to not critically think about our cult, and for fuck’s sakes do not say heresy out loud even if, especially if, you think it. A lesson well learned. You just made a future atheist! Good job! I think the reason she freaked out hard is that I said that in class with other impressionable where other kids could hear. I was clearly a lost cause. Contain the outbreak at all costs!
It was a big deal and not. IDGAF pastor didn’t really give a fuck. He gave a disinterested soliloquy on the benefit of doubt. Hey, at least he never tried to molest me. That’s a win.
One of a few instances where my mom actually had my back. I think it was mostly because she hated concerned Karen whose actual name was Elaine or something close to that. Two syllables and started with a E iirc.
If you have seen Mike Fliangan’s Midnight Mass you know the type. The gatekeeper. The one who would obviously volunteer to teach confirmation class.
A lot of church ladies were benign and useless. Gave me cookies and ice cream. Nice folk. Concerned Karen / Elaine, otoh was a very aggressive cancerous tumor within the congregation. And Pastor IDGAF ignored it, let it fester.
@Kari Q:
My condolences if there are damaging consequences for your company or yourself.
But doesn’t your company treasurer check the financial exposure of the banks you use to rising interest rates? Especially in a time of rising interest rates?
My grim amusement is at the sheer unbelievable idiocy of a major financial institution putting itself in danger of collapse if rates move against its positions.
Have they learnt NOTHING from the past fifteen years?
@JohnSF:
I actually do understand the humor, in spite of my terse response.
SVB was a highly rated bank until pretty recently, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they were trusted by so many companies. The collapse caught a lot of people by surprise.
I’m not on the financial side, so I can’t tell you how much checking on the bank they did. But they were cautious enough to have enough to have more than one bank, and they have enough cash available for the short to medium term.