I’ve had one of those days where I want to bash a fax machine with a baseball bat. If there’s one video that always makes me feel better, it’s this one:
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by Imani Gandy (ABL)| 52 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I’ve had one of those days where I want to bash a fax machine with a baseball bat. If there’s one video that always makes me feel better, it’s this one:
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Cliff
Bet ya can find a few fax machines for cheap on craigslist.
Have at ’em.
morzer
You could compromise and take a swing at the nearest FOX machine…..
MikeJ
Five tons of flax machine.
Yutsano
Fax machines r teh evil. Swing to your heart’s content I say.
MattR
I can’t be the only one to immediately think of this. (EDIT: Yikes. I did not realize the linked video is a recreation and not the original. I just changed the link to a non-youtube site that had the original)
piratedan
saw an interesting diary over at GOS and I really liked the link from Bill Maher’s show. It calls out the Sanity organizers for using the argument that media on the left and right are overrun by folks with extremist views and that we need to stop the hyperbole….
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-disses-the-daily-show-rally-its-better-to-have-a-rally-thats-about-something/
The comments on the site for the video diary seem to be pro Stewart, but perhaps its just a cult of personality thing. My own humble opinion is that Maher frames his argument pretty well. Of course ymmv.
MattR
@piratedan: Shh. I’m watching the repeat right now.
jl
Thank you for this open post. A brave and noble post.
Petey Greene was a great man, a brave man, a fearless man who could brave the curses and damnations of a nation of millions of dolts who adulterate, abuse, violate, fricken watermelon.
The sorrow of watermelon killed Petey Greene. I believe that.
The horrifying thing is that right thinking white people adulterate watermelon too. (Am I racist yet? I am sure the next troll will help me out on that). All those/booze/putter/inners of watermelon are on notice. It stops here.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Bwahahahaha! You’re last paragraph is sheer genius.
Hey, ABL, I have a broken fax machine that you can have if you so desire. It needs a good bat-bashing.
@piratedan: Before I even look at your link, I saw Stewart’s summing up speech, and I was pissed that he did the right and left equivalence thing. It’s simply not true.
ETA: I read the excerpt by Maher, and that has been my gripe with the equivalence thing all along. The crazies on the left are fringe and shunned. The crazies on the right are embraced and elevated.
Tattoosydney
Hello all.
Baking golden delicious apples stuffed with raisins and custard and wrapped in homemade flaky shortcrust pastry. Nom.
jl
I remember working on the farm when we grew watermelons in one field way back in the day. Some days starting around first light you had kind of hunch it was going to be somewhat rather overly hot that day.
First thing to do was to search for a dozen or so prime watermelons, which involved secret tests and procedures which I will not reveal to just anyone. How many you picked depended on how many people were working and how hot it would be.
If you were picking, then you would be done with that before it got really hot, but you got some watermelons in the ditch anyway, since there would be other work later. Then, the first thing any picker thought when they picked a melon was if it was ditchworthy, or only good enough to sell. And we didn’t have any dickwad strawboss walking ahead of us marking the ones we were supposed to pick. No sir, everyone on the crew knew how to pick a melon.
Then we took them down to the ditch right near the water came out of the well, very cold, and we lined them up at the bottom of the ditch. Then you left them there until you knew they were as cold as the well water.
When the time was right, say around 11 AM when it was going past 90, you took the first one out. Probably the least promising one, since you wanted to save the biggest and best for when it for the 105 time of day. You tap the melon with the end of the shovel. Any good watermelon should crack open with a tap of the shove. If it didn’t, there was a good chance it was no good and you’d just throw it away.
Then you ate it, just like in that moving picture talkie show up above. You washed your hands in the water and just grabbed out a chunk. Fancy people might use their jack knife. Anything fancier would wreck the water melon, and I do not remember anyone try such a damn fool thing.
Then you put your hat in the ditch and scoop up a bunch of water and pour it over your head a few times. On a hot day, that deserved many watermelon breaks, you could watch the water evaporate off your clothes.
Best watermelons were saved for mid afternoon when it was hottest. If very hot day, then maybe need a second batch to cool for evening when you knocked off work.
Once it was getting over 110. I see my grandpa’s truck roaring along the road and he gets out and asks us if we know how hot it is. And we say, not that hot. And he says it is over 110 in the shade over by the house, and it’s too damn hot to work. Then he asks if we got any melons ready to eat. And we ask why on earth he would think we did not. And he says well lets check out how the melons are today, no time like the present. So we went over there an compared and contrasted melons for awhile before people wandered off.
That my friends, is the way to eat a watermelon. You cool it, it cut it or grab chunks of it, and you eat it. Anything else is a crime to the watermelon. Believe me, or not, but some day you will have to face your God and explain whether you used watermelons as they were intended, and you will know the truth.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Share plz. Or at least please be kind enough to food pr0n.
MattR
@piratedan: I really appreciate that Maher said all that with Darrell Issa sitting right there. I also liked his line about Jon’s rally drawing twice as many people as Beck’s but it weighed the same.
I can’t disagree with his criticisms of Jon’s false equivalence, especially the examples he cited. And I do agree with his premise that the best way to restore sanity is to support the sane people. But Bill repeatedly called it a liberal rally which I think misreads Jon’s (and Stephen’s) intentions. Same thing with his comment about their being no point in trying to get moderate reasonable people from both sides together when there are no moderates left on one side. That is true of politicians, but not of the public. And those were the people Jon was trying to reach. IMO, Jon does not believe that the two sides are in any way equivalent but he does think there are excesses on both sides. More importantly he thinks that to get the people he is trying to reach to listen to him he cannot appear to be focusing on the excesses of one side over the other. I also thought that be painting the opposite extremes the way he did it allowed a truly open minded viewer to analyze and measure the actions of each side to come to a conclusion about where the real crazies are.
Or I could just be a Stewart fanboy. I wouldn’t rule that out.
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Hiyah, AsiangrrlMN. I see you are out early tonight. And I am out late. How are you? It is late for me, so will read what you have to say later if you take awhile to get back. For I will soon sleep, and tonight will wistfully contemplate watermelons I have known in my youth.
For as you can see above, I take watermelons seriously.
Though, in the summer, all sort of stuff got thrown in the irrigation ditch near the well for cooling off. Any kind of melon being grown, peaches, plums, nectarines, if figs ready, through a few in sack and they go in too.
But the watermelons, they were special. Thing about watermelons is that they are also fecund. Probably five years after we stopped growing them, there were volunteers growing up all around that field on side of ditches and by the road. We would throw some water on them if they needed it from time to time, and had free watermelons for years.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN: I know I am in a small minority but I thought Jon’s criticisms of Olbermann were based on his style/delivery more than anything. I don’t think that comparing Olbermann to Hannity or O’Reilly is unreasonable in that regard. (I was gonna include Beck, but he really is the master). Olbermann is definitely not the demagogue that those on the right are since his attacks are based in fact.
I am not saying that I agree with that line of criticism. I think there is a strong case that we need people like Keith on TV aggressively pointing out the deceit and lies. But at the same time, I don’t think that Jon’s criticism that Keith and Ed Schultz go over the top is unreasonable (and I want to note that he did not include any clips of Rachel Maddow whose show has a distinctly less confrontatioal tone)
And on a completely unrelated note, the Internet is a scary thing. It took me less than 5 minutes to figure out Zygi Wulf’s home address once I read something in a Randy Moss article that piqued my curiosity. (I would guess there is about a 90% chance that the address I have is the correct one.)
piratedan
@MattR:
tbh Matt, I generally like both Stewart and Colbert and appreciate the work that they do cutting thru the idiocy that is generally espoused by those on the right when they begin to act as if they believe their own punch lines. I will say that the rally was a good thing, its always encouraging to see folks engaged that don’t appear to be completely smitten by the shell game that Faux News is selling. I think that they undercut their arguements though when they attempt to equate the likes of Beck and Hannity to Schultz and Olbermann. Do both use hyperbole, yup, but one is based on facts and the other … not so much. I especially give Olbermann a pass considering he was a lone voice of reason during the Bush debacle and w/o him, we never see the likes of Maddow. Still waiting on her equivalent on the right.
El Cid
Apparently you get a significantly higher SAT score if your essays are longer.
MattR
@piratedan:
I really hope this isn’t true. That is gonna be a long, disappointing wait.
@El Cid: Thank god they didn’t have the essay when I took the SAT. Who really thought that adding subjective grading to a standardized test was a good idea?
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: That wasn’t the clip I saw. I may have stopped before he reached that point. In the clip I watched, Jon was denigrating people who called Tea Partiers racist and Juan Williams a bigot. Um, they are, and he is. Otherwise, the words lose meaning. I am a huge Stewart fan, but I got tired of the ‘both sides do the same thing’ shtick. He may be trying to reach the moderates, which is fine. But to assume that people will see the false equivalence for what it is…well, that’s just naive, in my opinion. Again, I love Jon. I love Stephen. It just rubbed me the wrong way to hear those two particular points being mentioned.
ETA: I stopped watching Olbermann long ago for the very reasons you mentioned. His delivery is smug and supercilious.
@jl: My schedule has been bouncing all over the place. Have you ever thought about writing a memoir? Your memories are fascinating.
@El Cid: That’s cool. I wish they had had that when I was taking the SAT. I hate standardized testing.
Calming Influence
I was lucky enough to grow up in a small farming community in upstate NY in the 60s, and a late summer tradition was stealing watermelons from the fields and gnawing on them like jackals on a dead wildebeest. You had to bust them over your knee; no nice clean slices, you had that shit all over your face, and loved it.
Be the watermelon.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN:
I just had to laugh at this after posting my initial reaction to the news.
Oh, and yeah. I forgot about the Juan Williams bit in Stewart’s speech at the rally. That annoyed me.
Andy K
One day? I’ve had a whole week of it, ABL!
If you’re still feeling this way tomorrow night, I’ll have day two of the Positive Vibe Campaign at the LNMC. I think Saturday’s entry will have a dedication theme going on. Maybe I’ll feature Stevie. Yeah, I think I will.
Martin
Had an interaction today with a contractor that finally clicked something in my brain. It’s related to what DougJ was saying about white people voting Republican, but I think he has it turned just slightly askew.
The contractor was a painter, white guy in his late 50s/early 60s with an NRA sticker on his van. I’m the perfectly average white guy – I’m Bob from the Enzyte commercials. I’m walking by and he chats me up. Now, this isn’t quite typical. This is the OC. Population 3 million. It’s not fucking Mayberry. It happens, but it’s a big weird.
Anyway, 30 seconds of smalltalk and then he says ‘so, how about that election’. Now, I know exactly where he’s going here from his tone, and then he gets in on talking about freedom from taxes and and all the standard teabagging shit. He’s exactly what DougJ was describing, but so far I’m just listening, a little perplexed. It’s not the first time this has happened to me, but it finally dawned on me what was happening. I was ‘in the club’. He had no doubt whatsoever that I was also a teabagger. I couldn’t be a Democrat – I’m not black, don’t look gay, aren’t smoking a joint, and I’m in the fucking OC. I mean, I’m J. R. Bob Dobbs without the pipe. Now, I’ve had these kinds of interactions before and they were equally perplexing to me.
I suspect this is what it used to be like living in the south in the 50s. You could walk into the diner and the white folks there would feel perfectly comfortable and open talking about dealing with the niggers with you.
The conversation I was having with this guy wasn’t a conversation he would have struck up with my Filipino neighbor, or my Mexican neighbor, or my Chinese neighbor. It was like exchanging the Water Buffalo Lodge secret handhake. It was honestly a little creepy realizing that I was having a conversation reserved for me solely because I was white.
Anyway, after standing there for a minute or two looking stoned while this guy gave his little teabagger speech to me, nudge nudge, wink wink, everything kind of clicked into place and I finally responded to him. I called him out. “If I was Jewish, would you be having this conversation with me? I know you wouldn’t even have looked at me if I was black. You seem to think that because I’m white I’m a fucking teabagger. I’m not – I voted for Obama and I’ll vote for him again and so did every white friend I have. You’re in the wrong goddamn state – Democrats won every statewide office, by wide margins. In spite of every lie you guys have peddled you got your asses kicked. Go move back to Alabama.” He was shocked, mumbled something, and got in his truck.
Hopefully I’ve rattled his trust in ‘the club’. But the more I think about it, it was pretty brazen. I think he really believed Glenn Beck when he heard that they have us surrounded. There’s something much more sinister going on out there than I realized.
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: I know. I saw yours before posting mine, and I snickered. My brain does not do well with standardized testing because I always think, “Well, in this situation, A is true. In this situation, B is true. However, in this situation, neither A or B is true.” Give me an essay any day over that nonsense.
Honestly, with the Stewart thing, once I heard the “Tea Partiers are not racist” bit, my mind shut down. OK, I should clarify–racism is a guiding force in the Tea Party movement. That is not to say that all Tea Partiers are racist. However, Stewart said something about ‘they think Tea Partiers are racist’ as those who were not at the rally. So, by his definition, I would not have been welcomed.
@Martin: I actually envy you a bit because you are privy to those thoughts in a way I am not. And, good on you for taking a stand. That took guts.
Yutsano
@Martin: That. Was. AWSUM!! I only wish it did any good, because the way their brains work you’re now the devil spawn of Nancy Pelosi.
Mike Kay (Team America)
deleted
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
They are a bit fail, ’cause the pastry collapsed, but eh, pastry, sultanas, custard and apple – how bad can it taste?
ETA: Photo to follow…
Calming Influence
@Andy K: Love that; but maybe this Stevie is more appropriate….
asiangrrlMN
@Mike Kay (Team America): “I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords.”
ETA: Whyfore you deleted? Oh well. I’m leaving my answer.
@Tattoosydney: PHOTOS NOW! Nom nom nom. By the way, I like the word ponce, too.
@MattR: The difference is, I think, people who have plenty of experience in the minority would not assume that just because someone looks like them, that person would think the same thing. I don’t assume anyone thinks like I do, and that holds me in pretty good stead.
MattR
@Martin: Interesting anecdote and I am pretty sure you are right on the money with your analysis. However, I do think that everyone subconsciously thinks that people who look like them are similar to them. We try and overcome it. Teabaggers embrace it.
I started a Facebook conversation with a libertarian I know (and his friend) who was complaining about wanting to move out of California to Colorado after Prop 25 passed. I gave up pretty quickly when he started talking about the tyranny of the simple majority and the majority ramming their desires down everyone’s throats.
@Calming Influence: I keep expecting Stevie Ray Vaughn. Not that Mr. Wonder is a bad consolation prize.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Culinary ugly ducklings can often taste phenomenal. I bet the sweetness and texture are all in place.
SRW1
@jl:
Thanks jl, liked that very much. You have a talent to put the decency of the only superficially simple into words.
Martin
@Yutsano: That’s okay. He wasn’t painting my house, but a neighbors who I don’t like very much. If his fee fees are hurt and he does a bad job, well, I won’t cry.
Tattoosydney
I’m trying to post pics but they keep being swallowed. Is the word for a sweet final course that starts with d and ends with e55ert on the banned list?
ETA – Trying on flickr.
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: As we are all aware by now, WordPress needs no reason to be capricious or malicious. It shall do so upon its own whim.
And that is some serious nom right there I must say.
Andy K
@Calming Influence:
We’re on different wavelengths here. :)
I’m not talking about dedicating (or rededicating) to the cause, but opening the love line so Tommy can dedicate Going Out of My Head to Cherisse.
MattR
@Tattoosydney: Thanks. My melba toast actually started tasting better.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Whither art uséd “ponce”?
Andy K
@MattR:
Oh, yeah, that’s the Protection From Taxation Clause of the 99th Amendment. It’s the one that follows the Murder Whoever You Want Clause.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: You did in a very much earlier thread. It’s an awesome word. And, your dessert–I like it very much. You sure you didn’t have too many links in your post?
We shall see if WP accepts the dreaded d-word.
ETA: Desserts is fine. Thinking more about it, I think you used punters. Which is another fine word.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
I thought we were allowed three, but apparently tonight it’s only two.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: If you are just linking, it’s three. If you are responding to someone, it’s two. If you are responding to two people, it’s one. FYWP!
All right late-nightshift. I have more to write before I sleep, so I’m outie. If there is much fun to be had, take pics!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
Is this not, in fact, the summation of everything you’re trying to say? You apparently are capable of much brevity when it is warranted. I only request you use your powers for good.
@Tattoosydney: Maybe you need to alter your sacrifice to the WP gods. Or sic Pedro on them.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yes. Yes. Yes. (My own good, that is).
Joseph Nobles
Just thought of something. I’m seeing the amount of trips the Obamas have taken popping up amid the discussions of how much they cost. I don’t think the righties are considering that Bush didn’t make a lot of foreign visits because nobody really wanted him to come.
Cain
Howdy folks!
I am in India/Mumbai having beat Obama by 8 hours here. Landed the morning after Diwali (happy Diwali!). There has beeb wall to wall coverage here on Obama’s coverage. The news here is so much more nuance than American media.
Lots of anger over reverse on outsourcing and the fact Obama did not mention Pakistan by name during his speech regarding the 11/26 attack. They are quite mad about that. There is alot latent anger in regards to Pakistan and u.s. Funding of them.
Cain
El Cid
@Martin: Just want to say that was great to read, very satisfying. Here in Georgia, it’s the opposite in terms of context: sure, a bunch of dickhead white people (overwhelmingly men) starting to bitch ‘with’ me about how awful Obama and the Democrats and Pelosi all the time, but this is the right wing white South, so my recourse to tell them they’re limited aren’t one.
I am getting more practiced in talking with people I don’t know (work, strangers) and just saying, ‘well, I don’t really agree with all that, but I know how everybody’s got some different opinion about politics and religion, so I just try to keep away from it at work and such.’
However, this often follows exhortations such as ‘someone needs to blow Obama away’. But that was by a retired couple transplanted from New York. And I reminded them that it was not proper to speak of such violence against the President. They at least agreed that that probably wasn’t polite, though they still couldn’t see any other way out.
Fuckers. I hate ’em all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: @El Cid: I have had similar things happen over the years. Often, it would be some guy who would start talking to me about his views on African-Americans. It has always left me with a weird feeling* where I wonder if the guy does it with every white person or if I had behaved in some way that gave him the idea that I might subscribe to his views. I end up analyzing and self-critiquing every word I said and every gesture I made in the guy’s presence. Ultimately, since my conversations with the person have frequently involved things like the weather, the previous weekend’s football games or the fact that “Yes, I also like two olives in my martini,” I have decided that people like that just assume that all white people feel the way they do.** Assholes.
(*) Aside from the disgust.
(**) Unless the olive thing is code. Is it? Does anyone know?
Benjamin Cisco
@Martin: Thank you for sharing that! I tell you, this place never ceases to amaze.
jl
@Martin: Big thanks for that story. I have had that kind of conversation too, but mainly at work. I never lived in OC, and when I commuted in and taught there it was colleges that that a very diverse enrollment. But at places I have worked, mainly in finance and defense, a lot of conservative whites would assume that because you were white you thought just like them.
Glad to hear some one else had that same type of experience.
I wouldn’t confront people I had to work with everyday like you did the painter. I would ask exploratory questions, in an attempt to see what was up with the person, were they misinformed, or a real nutjob?
In finance, the club was also male, so you got a lot clubby nonsense about women too. Which might be OK for goofy conversations and jokes in the men’s shower room, but was creepy when some meant for it to be taken seriously.
There are a lot of Chris Matthews types out there. Decent people, but if you take what they say seriously, then it seems like Andy and Opie and Mayberry would be a communist subversive show (and Griffith is a Democrat, so maybe they are on to something)
polyorchnid octopunch
@MattR: That’s strange… I thought of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhK2hZvN3l8
Kickin’ it old school.
ABL, I have to say that video was completely outside my experience. Of course, I’m from a small city in southeastern Ontario, so that sort of explains that.
“Might even be thinking about putting liquids in there… and they just be ruining it.”
Just awesome. Nice track out too.
Mako
Channel 20. Captain 20 in the morning, Sir Graves Ghastly late night. Same guy, different outfits. Simpler times- crack cocaine was called “free-basing”, black folk were known as “Afro-Americans” (as was the hairstyle of the time) and you could still find a triple X club on 14th St. Petey Greene was required late night viewing for anyone who enjoyed a good rant. It’s too bad there isn’t more of his stuff online, but who could afford a Betamax?