Via a comment link in a Slate-linked article, a… reply?… to Cole’s post. When you’re in Mormon Nice territory:
RIVERTON – Maybe it’s a hand flipping the bird – or it could be a cactus.
For three families, it’s just another dispute in a yearlong battle over a house being built along Reeves Lane in this southwest Salt Lake Valley community.
Owner Darren Wood described the vent covering placed Monday as decorative “abstract art” and a “cactus.” But his neighbors uphill say it’s a hand flipping them off.
“This kind of shows the attitude that we’ve been dealing with all along,” said Stan Torgersen, who added that the gesture is visible from every window on the back of his house….
Haven’t been able to find an update on the 2006 Salt Lake Tribune article, so I can’t tell you if the Torgersens ever settled their beef with Mr. Wood.
What’s on the agenda as we wind down on the weekend?
Culture of Truth
What’s on the agenda?
Republicans went on the Sunday political chat shows to say Obamacare proves Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are part of an experiment to test a liberal “theory” which has failed, and it’s time to give up on “this basic idea that liberals and progressives have pushed for the last 80 years.”
Wingnuts — they really know how to hold a grudge.
srv
Food. Then window treatments.
Keith P.
No thumb, no hand
Culture of Truth
@efgoldman: Well, that’s a good point, but they’re sending surrogates out (writers for the Wall Street Journal) in an effort to work the ref.
Xantar
Quantum computing is making progress.
raven
The bride got back from a funeral in Virginia and just told me she had a bloody bowel movement. She can’t catch a break.
shelly
That could be for any number of reasons, not all dire.
raven
@shelly: Yea, she’s on an anti-inflam for her awful back problems so maybe that’s it. We’ll get it checked out most rickey-tic.
max
@Culture of Truth: test a liberal “theory” which has failed, and it’s time to give up on “this basic idea that liberals and progressives have pushed for the last 80 years.”
“….SUCKERS”
Well, that’s a good point, but they’re sending surrogates out (writers for the Wall Street Journal) in an effort to work the ref.
“Bush? There was someone named Bush? When did that happe…. OH, you mean that LIBERAL!”
Meantime, heeee’sssss baaaaaacccccccccccckkkkkkkk:
“PERRY IN GLASSES 2016! The *sensible* alternative to that commiesymp Christie and that psycho Cruz!”
max
[‘SUNDAY! Sunday! sunday! CLOWNSHOW 2016 COMES TO A NEWSPAPER NEAR YOU! FEATURING HUNDREDS OF NITRO-BURNIN’ FUNNY CAR CONSERVATIVES IN AN ALL OUT RACIN’ ACTION….’]
shelly
@raven:
That’s too bad. Didn’t you mention that she had back surgery? Did that help at all?
MikeJ
@max:
Who will be the first to use Google glass as a TelePrompTer?
jeffreyw
@MikeJ: …and who will be the first to have them hacked during an important speech?
WereBear
As always
DOWN AND DIRTY IN THE BOG… BOG… BOG
Keith P
Goober Glass
MikeJ
@jeffreyw: That would be the bestest thing ever. Particularly if it were Perry or Palin. I think it would take them longer to realise they were off the official script.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
The Streak is over. Spotting North Dakota three goals in the first period proved to be not just a bad idea but a fatal one. The Gophers controlled the second and third periods but could only get two of them back. They had about a dozen good chances to get the third one and couldn’t get it to go in.
That was a fun 21 months.
ruemara
@raven: I’m sorry. I really hope it’s anomalous and that a break can be caught.
I finished my gofundme page. Still not sure about it, but it is a bold new step in something or another. I’ve been trying to collect all the pictures I’ve taken in my prior position of the holiday fests. I had no idea I took so many. But this one is my new fave.
handsmile
Flipped bird or cactus?
Calling all apopheniacs! Or, “Why we can ‘see’ the house that looks like Hitler”:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/17/why-we-see-hitler-house
feebog
Perry has already demonstrated that he is a lightweight dim witted empty suit. The wonder is that after what was arguably the worst debate performance in the history of presidential politics he thinks he has any chance whatsoever. In the 2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car, he’s the clown chasing the car.
IowaOldLady
@raven: Good that she’s getting it checked out. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious.
MikeJ
@efgoldman: I got to do one for a fireworks show once. You get to be all basso profundo boomy for that, even if it’s not a monster truck show. For the FX I had to use a track called “blasting in a coal mine” because real fireworks sound like crap. Much more fun than seventy jillion Applebee’s donut tracks[1] I did.
[1] for the non radio ppl, a donut track is when the agency sends you a jingle tape with singing at the beginning and end and an instrumental part in the middle where the local station does a voice over.
Roger Moore
Broncos/Chiefs.
Culture of Truth
@efgoldman: She writes notes on her hand. No, really.
IowaOldLady
Mr IOL went to China for a week. I plan to eat a lot of junk food that I won’t let him have.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I remember them costing like a buck or so – but a million dollars? THAT is why Obamacare shouldn’t provide “free” contraception, never mind the BC pills.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
And if KC wins, it will give me YET ANOTHER reason to whine about the Jets not picking up Alex Smith when they had the chance.
With any luck, they’ll bring in Omar Minaya and Dan Duquette to run the front office. Now THERE would be a brain trust to beat Caribou Barbie – but not by much. (And it pains me to say that about a kid from Queens.)
MomSense
@ruemara:
Love that pic, too and not just because I was a dancer.
NotMax
@max
“Does these here specs really make me look all smart-like? Goll-ee!”
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Only if one wants to be saved.
I thought you would have figured that out by now, at least as regards me.
cckids
@ruemara: Make sure you throw a link up here. I love your “toes” pic.
schrodinger's cat
Open thread needs a kitteh with herz mama.
raven
@IowaOldLady: My best buddy is there for a year as a trainer with the CBA Bejing Ducks basketball team. He’s living in relative luxury in Bejing but the road is a bitch.
schrodinger's cat
Did a ton of cooking for the coming week. A huge pot of chicken curry, ground turkey kebabs, lentil stew, broccoli, couscous, rice,hummus, pickled cranberries, green chili salsa, tamarind chutney, dill and onion chutney, mango smoothie and mint lassi.
Shalimar
@max:
It’s funny that all these notches to the left and right are exactly the same beliefs; only difference is how much of an asshole you’re currently being to liberals. I have faith that no one is going to get to Christie’s right in that battle when he finally starts trying.
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
Does not compute?
rikyrah
CNN spends ten minutes comparing President Obama to crackhead Toronto mayor Rob Ford
November 17, 2013
By Anomaly
I’m waiting for a Conservative or network to compare the Obamacare site to the Holocaust soon.We’ve heard everything else. On Saturday, CNN spent ten minutes comparing President Obama to crack head Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
They began with a split-screen image of Obama and Ford, because why not.
………………………….
Lemon responded, “We know the two crises are both very different.But it’s about how do you manage those crises? That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
We can totally understand this analogy. Ford, caught on video threatening to kill a ‘mother fucker’, used racial slurs, smokes crack, talks about oral sex with his wife, may have had relations with a prostitute and may have abused his wife, is just like President Obama because HealthCare.gov is glitchy.
http://freakoutnation.com/2013/11/17/cnn-spends-ten-minutes-comparing-president-obama-to-crackhead-toronto-mayor-rob-ford/
Baud
@rikyrah:
Jesus. Going Godwin would actually be an improvement.
BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW:
Them are condoms made to DOD specs by a defense contractor.
schrodinger's cat
@SFAW: Why not?
One example here
catclub
@efgoldman: “That means the crazy TeaHadis probably won’t coalesce around one of them to give us the best nominee EVAH! ”
Well, I was thinking that Cruz is definitely wrapping up the teahadis early, which will be how to stop Christie. I guess now we will wait to see.
schrodinger's cat
@efgoldman: Responding to SFAW who thinks you can’t make kebabs out of ground meat.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: So you’re saying I should have double quoted it? I thought about that, too busy.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: You can get a 40 pack at Costco for about $9.00.
Litlebritdiftrnt
Have ya’ll seen this piece of awesomeness?
http://www.upworthy.com/a-senator-said-voter-registration-was-confusing-watch-a-12-year-old-clear-that-up-for-him?c=utw1
Madison for Governor in however many years!
srv
I thought we had commenters from the midwest – is everybody OK out there?
catclub
I thought the expression was ‘Minnesota nice’. The Mormons, via the Romneybot5000, have had the wrong spokesdroid for their tribe recently.
Didn’t I see a lot of posts about Mormons having no problems being serious assholes towards those outside the tribe?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Almost Human was pretty good. Think I’ll give it a go.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@rikyrah: Lemon should start going on air in blackface, for authenticity’s sake.
hells littlest angel
@max: When I see Perry wearing those specs, I immediately think of the old Simpsons episode in which Homer starts wearing a pair of eyeglasses he found in a toilet bowl.
Geoduck
@Roger Moore:
It’s somewhat bizarre as a Seahawk fan to realize if the ‘Hawks to make it back to the Super Bowl, they are likely to be playing one of these two teams, when they used to be divisional rivals.
Ash Can
@srv: Speaking for Illinois, the Chicago area was pretty much unscathed. Most of the wreckage was downstate. It looks like the tornadoes avoided the most heavily populated areas, fortunately, but that’s no comfort to the small towns that did get whacked.
Mike in NC
@raven: Name it Eric Cantor.
Mandalay
@rikyrah: Your post makes about CNN comparing Ford and Obama makes it sound awful…but it is actually far worse (from watching the video at the link you gave).
The clinical psychologist assures us that it is fair to make a comparison “between the two crises” because “both of them are in trouble”. Then the earnest host asks “Who are we more likely to forgive: Rob Ford or President Obama”? The clinical psychologist proclaims that “President Obama seems to want to be forgiven whereas Ford just doesn’t give a rat’s behind”.
Mindless drivel of the highest order. CNN is worse than Fox News. At least Fox coherently pushes a distorted agenda. CNN just get a bucketful of shit and offal and rub it on their faces in front of a camera.
I’m surprised that CNN didn’t point out that neither Ford nor Obama have admitted to physically abusing their wife. How could they overlook such an obvious parallel?
normal liberal
@Ash Can:
Also in Illinois, several towns around Peoria got major damage and one fatality so far. I’m a bit further to the east, where we had lots of downed trees and branches, flooding, and some structural damage, thanks to the wind.
This was the worst storm I’ve seen in a long time. The wind was truly scary, and kept gusting for hours after the line of heavy rain, hail and tornadoes came through.
This doesn’t usually happen in November.
Eric S.
@srv: on the north side of Chicago. All good here. Mom lives in Cincinnati. She and the cat had to go to the basement for a while but reports all is clear.
Kyle
@catclub:
It’s an accepted part of their doctrine that it’s OK to lie to non-Mormons when it advances the interests of the religion.
Mormon businessmen in my experience are at least as big sacks of shit liars as non-Mormons. And that specifically includes Thrifty rent a car agency at SLC airport.
Rmoney certainly didn’t break the impression that no higher ethical standards are evident.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
I think the Snowbilly grifter’s already done that.
Oh, wait, she was reading the Obama teleprompter jokes off a teleprompter…
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: very meta
Keith P
Damn, dunno if anyone here watches Eastbound & Down, but the finale was AWESOME. First season of it was absolutely perfect, with the subsequent seasons not being nearly as good (although I liked the original series finale from S3). But this one tonight put a smile on my face. And the cameos….the awesome, awesome cameos (including – SPOILER………………………….Alexander Skarsgard as Toby)
polyorchnid octopunch
Peter Watts publishes an elegy to one of his rescue cats: http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=4538
catclub
I knew there was something I was going to predict: In six months or less, someone who takes advantage of the right to buy their shitty old insurance policy will complain when their insurance company screws them. They will then get on TV and Blame Obama. The press will aid in this idiocy. “Why couldn’t Obama protect these people from such crappy insurance?”
Yatsuno
@catclub:
Not taking that bet. In fact, that’s a Republican aspiration at this point.
John O
My niece, her husband, and their 3 boys under age 10 lost everything they had in the storms in IL today. The house is flattened. Gone. They were incredibly lucky to be away when the storm hit, because their big old 100+ year old farmhouse that had seen its share of storms now looks like this. It is happenstance that they’re all alive.
I need to bleg and don’t know how to do it.
YellowJournalism
@handsmile: Funny, the image in the lady’s grilled cheese from that article really does look like The Madonna to me, only not the holy one.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Your typo? I’m hurt. And after all we’ve been through together.
Anne Laurie
@catclub: ‘Midwestern/Scandinavian/Morman Nice’, as I’ve seen it used, usually implies a nasty passive-aggressive streak under the social politeness: “That’s not a rude gesture, it’s an abstract of a cactus. It’s ART, you dirty-minded NotOneofUS person…(heh, heh)”
Like all of Willard’s so-called “jokes”, eg, pointing at overweight passersby and telling his staffers ‘There’s your date for tonight.’ Why so offended? He said it was a joke!
Violet
@John O: That’s awful. I’m so sorry for your niece and her family. At least they are all okay, but that’s still an awful thing to have happen.
John O
@John O:
Two kitties missing, as well, but the dog Suna saved by a heroic effort from Mom. No insurance, but at least they were only renting.
We’re counting our blessings.
Hill Dweller
@catclub:
These idiots are just delaying the inevitable. They’ll be in the exact same position this time next year.
Hell, they’ve had years to get a policy that met the ACA minimum coverage standards.
MikeJ
BTW, if you ever wanted to run away and join the circus, DVR alert. La Strada is on TCM at 11 tonight. I love love love this movie.
NotMax
@handsmile
Back when blogged regularly, had an intermittent sub-head called Pareidolia On Parade that tracked such instances of idiocy.
danielx
@Culture of Truth:
Because free markets. And because it’s so much more desirable for people to be hungry and suffer from curable disease.
Weather got a little sporty today, but we were lucky – everything went north of us or south of us. People in Illinois got hit pretty hard around Peoria, Pekin, Normal…
NotMax
@MikeJ
The movie is unquestionably good, but (IMHO) Nino Rota’s score is even better.
MattR
@John O: OMG. Very glad they were not home at the time the storm came through. Hope you find the kitties.
Do they at least have somewhere to stay tonight as well as access to sufficient funds to allow them to buy the basic necessities – food, toiletries, change of clothing, etc?
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
Never saw hamburger kebabs before. As it turns out, not surprising, since most of the kebab references I found relate to un-ground meat(s).
As far as “can’t” vs. “don’t usually”: there are plenty of things in this world that one can do. Doesn’t mean any/all of them is a good idea. You can probably make chicken liver kebabs, but given the shit they put into chickens these days, probably not something of which I’d want to partake. (Which pains me, in a way, because my beloved grandmother used to make great gehackte Leber – something I’d look forward to having for lunch at school. But that was many years ago. And I digress.)
John O
@MattR:
Thanks, Matt, yes, they’re set up with the in-laws who live in the same town but were relatively unscathed, and have their short-term needs covered by friends and family, at least so far. Food and shelter are covered. Electricity is not, however, since the fire dept. said a week at least.
But they got out with only the clothes on their back (and the dog), are a young couple with 3 young boys, and are going to be starting from ZERO. It’s an all-around nightmare except for being alive.
SFAW
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I blame either Clinton or Obama for both emasculating our Armed Forces and making disease prevention so expensive for them. Or something.
catclub
@Yatsuno: I am also wondering how the now extended shitty policies will deal with things like recission. Are they exempt from those new parts of the law? Pre-existing conditions? Lifetime maxima?
burnspbesq
Pope Frankie continues to amaze.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pope-francis-beats-all/
This is how to handle Dolan: just keep giving him more rope with which to hang himself.
burnspbesq
@danielx:
No Republican believes in a social safety net … until they need it to catch their family. Then it can’t be big enough or strong enough.
Yatsuno
@catclub: I would think those are all forbidden now, but with grandfathered policies who knows. There is absolutely nothing keeping the insurance companies from cancelling these policies at any time either, it would just be under Obama’s rules they couldn’t blame ACA. Which I think is a fair trade-off.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
I’m either missing something, or just not that smart (maybe both?): how did that article relate to Dolan?
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Well, of course, silly! It’s because THEY are deserving of help, not like the poors and browns (and poor browns). Because all those poors get fat sucking at teh government teat.
MattR
@John O: Renters insurance by any chance? Sounds like no :( And insurance doesn’t eliminate the hassle of having to replace everything (or the trauma of losing it).
Unfortunately, I have no idea what the rules/laws are for getting state or federal assistance. Maybe contact the Red Cross and/or FEMA (or the Illinois version of it)?
Original Lee
Went to see a local production of The Pajama Game and now have this song stuck in my head. Should be updated for the push for raising the minimum wage, don’t you think?
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
It didn’t, at least not explicitly. But I would have thought that the parallel was fairly obvious: in a situation where you can’t actually kill your opponents, kill them with kindness. Muzzling them is the worst thing you can do. Let them keep talking until their folly becomes obvious to even the most obtuse.
The thing that Frankie has going for him in the current theological debate is that the vast majority of the faithful want to belong to his Church, not to Dolan’s. Make the choice obvious, and trust the faithful to figure it out.
burnspbesq
Like it or not, Larry Summers is one smart mutha, and he’s onto something very important here.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/secular-stagnation-coalmines-bubbles-and-larry-summers/?_r=0#more-35994
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
I saw that. Very interesting piece, with some huge implications that will take some time to think through. But it’s comforting to hear that some of the big brains are thinking outside of the conventional box.
Even though it’s “just” about economics (allegedly), Krugman’s blog has become a daily stop for me. Always good stuff, although I’m not crazy about all of his “Friday Night Music” selections.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
OK, thanks for explaining. I haven’t been following a lot of Church doings. I kinda-sorta knew that Dolan was/is more conservative (to put it tactfully). And I really like a number of the things that Pope Francis has done. I don’t remember John XXIII – although I remember when he died – but my sense (from my meager reading) is that he and Francis had/have a lot in common – in a good way. I just hope Francis doesn’t go the way of JP I, that would suck.
Hill Dweller
@Steeplejack: I love Krugman’s blog. Watching him discover “indy music” has been one of the more entertaining aspects of said blog.
Yatsuno
@MattR: FEMA should be involved here, and even renters are eligible for loans & disaster assistance. FEMA should be showing up here soon if not already.
Also: Mnem alert!
Villago Delenda Est
@Yatsuno:
They’ll blame ACA regardless, and the teatwits will lap it up.
They’re despicable people, to the last one.
bemused senior
@schrodinger’s cat: Pickled cranberry sounds yummy. Recipe?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@SFAW:
Ground meat kabobs are pretty common in Middle Eastern cooking — they’re usually called kofta or a similar name.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Yatsuno:
Our office’s potluck theme this year is “A Jolly Holiday with Mary Poppins.” Yes, we iz all geeks.
Origuy
@SFAW:
Ground meat kebabs are called kefta (kofta, kofte, other spellings) kebabs. Usually minced lamb, sometimes other meat.
ETA. Refresh, then post. Mnemosyne beat me to it.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Yes, I see/understand. I sometimes call shawarma “shashlik,” in much the same spirit. Of course, too much spirits, and I might end up calling it/them “brats.”
Origuy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Mary Poppins is a Time Lord.
SFAW
@Origuy:
Of course, this (i.e. responses from schrodinger, Mnem, and you) raises the question: as ‘Muricans, are we really allowed to eat stuff that all those browns and/or Moooslims eat, and not lose our citizenship? (For what profiteth a B-J commenter, if he/she gain some good victuals, but lose his/her something-or-other?)
cokane
am i the only one whose ring finger is longer than their index?
Spaghetti Lee
Trying to get down the introductory parts of my book so I can start the interesting parts. Off the top of their head, can anyone recommend a variation on/alternative to “Kid stealthily sneaks halfway down stairs to hear Mom and Dad talking worriedly about the kid; kid realizes that parents actually are worried and aren’t just being dictators for the hell of it; kid tries to stop being such an asshole?” I think I need something like that to happen to get the plot going, but that exact setup is so hoary I figure there’s got to be something better to do with it.
SFAW
@cokane:
Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air?
SFAW
@Spaghetti Lee:
Are you reading the book, or writing it? Wasn’t quite sure, don’t want to assume.
Villago Delenda Est
@Spaghetti Lee:
How about the kid overhears a phone call between one of the parents and a grandparent?
No need for both sides, just the local end. Comes home early from school or something, unexpectedly.
Spaghetti Lee
@SFAW:
Writing.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Spaghetti Lee:
Honestly, I’d skip over it and get straight to the plot. You can always go back and write that scene later when you know where the plot’s going.
Spaghetti Lee
@Villago Delenda Est:
Phone call might be a good idea. Dad (or Uncle in this case: non-traditional family structures yay) is a cop, so he’d have reason to be on the job late at night. I’m not sure ‘kid comes home unexpectedly’ would work because Mom would just cut the phone call short when she hears the door. Right now the situation is at the end of two straight days of mother-daughter hostilities, Mom at her wits’ end asking Cop Uncle for advice. Despite what the roles would suggest, Mom in this case is probably more of a disciplinarian than Cop Uncle: he usually plays the peacemaker between the two, but it’s getting to the point where peacemaking isn’t enough and someone’s gotta give.
Villago Delenda Est
@Spaghetti Lee:
Mom is so wound up in the phone call that she doesn’t hear daughter entering the house.
Or the daughter is operating in the stealth mode entering the house and is extra quiet (phone call precipitated by daughter storming out, perhaps?)
? Martin
@Spaghetti Lee:
We realized that the daughter learned that looking through the texting thread on mom’s phone was a good way to see what mom and I were discussing. No need for temporality – kid just needs a creative excuse to borrow mom’s phone in the car when mom can’t supervise what she’s looking at.
srv
@Spaghetti Lee: I’m still finishing something for botsplainer, but,
Spaghetti Lee
@? Martin:
Story set in the mid 90’s. Otherwise I’d go for that.
Spaghetti Lee
@srv:
I’m confused-are you offering this prose for me to use, or just showing a good example of how it could be done?
srv
Oh, variation.
The kids just taps his iphone for the spy app he’s installed on their phone and listend in. Or the family computer in the kitchen. Or the re-purposed baby monitor they think is in the attic.
srv
@Spaghetti Lee: Oh, 90’s….
Unless they’ve got a NeXT, I’m not sure about turning a remote mic on.
Spaghetti Lee
@srv:
Setting is about 15 years too early for the first two, and anyway creatively re-purposing technology like that would be out of character for this girl.
I don’t want to sound like I’m shooting everyone down here. Honestly I’m grateful you all care so much and are offering so many ideas.
Spaghetti Lee
@srv:
Don’t know much about that computer, but a quick Wiki scan makes it seem like it was expensive and had a “for Silicon Valley, by Silicon Valley” kind of ethos. Mom and uncle are two working-class civil servants raising a kid in small-town rust-belt Pennsylvania. Probably would seem out of place.
srv
@Spaghetti Lee: If a tomboy, she’d have an out-the-window plan. Maybe half-way down the tree instead of stairs.
Otherwise, late evening, no wind, open windows, a little drinking, adults never have a clue how far their conversations are traveling. We always knew what was going on, unless we were asleep.
Spaghetti Lee
@srv:
Drinking, heh. Hadn’t considered that. “Haven’t cracked into the bourbon since last Christmas. Hoping I’d get to save it for when I got promoted, but looks like I need it sooner.” She’s definitely an out-the-window-and-down-the-tree type tomboy-good guess*. Too early in the spring for late evening with the windows open, though. I think I’m leaning towards “walks in unnoticed on a phone conversation, stays out of sight to hear it through.”
*- What started the fight is that the daughter is fairly obsessed with always being outdoors and exercising and getting more physically fit, and mom would prefer that she spends more time doing schoolwork, but as a gesture of goodwill offers to sign her up for a YMCA-type basketball camp. That actually makes her angrier-she thinks that she’s being condescended to by an offer to join an all-girls league and wants to know why she can’t keep playing against the boys, even as she enters high school-this after she got her clock cleaned by an older teenage boy with ten inches/eighty pounds on her at the local park. Her unusual thoughts on sex and gender differences (namely that she’d rather ignore their existence) are a big driver of her character, and her mom is starting to worry that, at age 14, it might be more than tomboyism and some gender identity disorder/bigorexia, or maybe some deep psychological denial issues that she’s not prepared to deal with as a parent, financially or emotionally. What I’m trying to get to is that the daughter backs down and joins the girls’ league, which is when the plot wheels start really turning.
jenn
@John O: Holy toledo. I’m so sorry. Please pass along my best wishes to your family. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the kitties only used up one of their 9 lives, and will turn up a little shaken, but safe and sound.
jenn
@Spaghetti Lee: Parents are talking downstairs with the music on, so the daughter can’t hear them from her room (maybe over a cup of coffee or glass of wine?) – not realizing it also meant they couldn’t hear her sneak down the stairs?
jenn
@Spaghetti Lee: This internet break is brought to you by writer’s block. Well, not standard writer’s block, more the Roadblock of Ignorance. I’m writing a history, and I’ve hit a topic that I need to do more research on, that needs a bit more than a superficial google. Ah, well, what can be better than an excuse to buy more books?!
jenn
And now I appear to be talking to myself!
srv
@Spaghetti Lee: Rust belt PA, what else do they do but drink?
Did mom’s worry about gender identity in the mid-90’s?
I’m partial to girls volleyball over bball, but I don’t know what they do in PA.
Spaghetti Lee
@srv:
Hey now, that’s not nice.
Did mom’s worry about gender identity in the mid-90′s?
Well, there probably won’t be a character who refers to it as such, and I’m not going to go nuts with the psychoanalysis as the third-person narrator-it’s a novel, not a psychology textbook. Around town, more of a general feeling of, to paraphrase Hank Hill, “That girl ain’t right.” (Small-town might have been underselling it: it’s a made-up town, but about the size of Syracuse or Hartford, in Appalachian Pennsylvania. Not Deliverance country, but not the most hip and happenin’ place either.)
I’m partial to girls volleyball over bball, but I don’t know what they do in PA.
Like many kids born in the 80’s, she fell victim to Michael Jordan idolatry when she was old enough to start paying attention to sports, thus the basketball fandom. The fact that he’s taking his sabbatical during the events of the book only adds to her turmoil: If Mike walked away, what chance do I have?
? Martin
@srv: I went to a college in central PA in the early 90s with a quite large LGBT community. Roughly ⅓ of the girls soccer team was gay/bi.
@Spaghetti Lee: Yeah, basketball was popular as well.
max
It stopped raining, so the connection stopped crapping out!
@MikeJ: Who will be the first to use Google glass as a TelePrompTer?
None of those guys. They’d look too smart. Don’t wanna look smart, just don’t want to be accused of being Louie Gohmert.
DOWN AND DIRTY IN THE BOG… BOG… BOG
Yup. They used to run those commercials for a place called Yellowbelly Speedway, which was chock full of the kind of folks that would be serious methheads these days. The R nominating process reminds me of that place.
In 20 years of broadcasting, i always wanted to do one of those commercials. Never came close. You didn’t hear them much on classical music stations.
We didn’t do commercials! I’m not sure the mixer board had reverb on it. (The turntables were nice, and together they were probably worth more than all other equipment and furniture in the control room combined. The nuke green carpet that glowed and apparently was recycled from a bowling alley wasn’t worth anything at all. Probably have to pay someone to haul it away.)
@MikeJ: I got to do one for a fireworks show once. You get to be all basso profundo boomy for that, even if it’s not a monster truck show.
I always faked reverb on air as a joke because I could get the boomy thing going.
@efgoldman: ETA: No-one on the station staff, except the owners, could ever afford any of the stuff for which we read commercials.
So you understand!
@feebog: Perry has already demonstrated that he is a lightweight dim witted empty suit. The wonder is that after what was arguably the worst debate performance in the history of presidential politics he thinks he has any chance whatsoever. In the 2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car, he’s the clown chasing the car.
Don’t underestimate his abilities in terms of wingnut politics. He’s not smart, but he’s politically far more smart than a Mittens. Plus he’s dirty as hell and totally underhanded and just doesn’t have any principles whatsoever. (Romney had more money.) Kind of the Saddam Hussein of America’s Governors. Not smart, but wily.
@Shalimar: I have faith that no one is going to get to Christie’s right in that battle when he finally starts trying.
Yeah, and then Perry or someone just like him will start talking about Christie being one of Those People from Neeew Yorick and I’ll betcha some old school ethnic slurs will come back into fashion. And then Christie will lose.
@hells littlest angel: When I see Perry wearing those specs, I immediately think of the old Simpsons episode in which Homer starts wearing a pair of eyeglasses he found in a toilet bowl.
And then the other residents of Springfield making up the right-wing echo chamber will be impressed by how he’s all learned up now.
max
[‘Oh, this will be funny. In a scary, Deliverance kind of way.’]
srv
@Spaghetti Lee: Ok, I’m good with a girl who fights with boys and people wonder what’s up with that. As long as she’s already drinking at 14.
I’m good with bball. Soccer nutism didn’t really get going until later 90’s.
> Not Deliverance country
Well, there’s just a lot of scary parts of PA and I wouldn’t know which parts are which.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Spaghetti Lee:
In mid-90s small town, mom’s not going to worry about “gender identity,” she’s going to worry that her daughter is a lesbian. I guarantee you that a girl like that would probably have been called a “dyke” to her face at least once by age 14.
Did you ever read any of R.R. Knudsen’s “Zan” books from the 1970s? Your story sounds a little similar, except that Zan did get to play on the boys’ team.
(And Knudsen was a lesbian, which now makes total sense in retrospect, but is not something I would have gotten as a 10-year-old kid reading the books in the 1980s.)
LosGatosCA
A little bored tonight. 49ers lost, Stanford lost. Weather today was great though.
So . . . I thought I’d go NSA on this Mormon Nice feud.
Put in the defendant’s name, street/town reference in the Google. Here’s another picture – of the plaintiff:
https://thetfp.com/tfp/general-discussion/107618-naughty-neighbor-window-shaped-like-middle-finger.html
Then I went to Zillow, put in the same address and looked for a property in the neighborhood with that roof line and a white fence behind it. Bingo.
Actual street is Whatta View Place and it looks like the Mormon Nice guy sold out in 2007 via Re/Max (picture on their site) – with the offending feature removed – likely for resale value maximization.
That took 5 minutes – while chomping pretzel chips and swigging Diet Cherry Pepsi. Imagine if I had some security clearance and access to a drone pool.
piratedan
@LosGatosCA: and with that effort, you’ve surpassed what most of the Beltway media has done in the last month and you should be gunning for Lara Logan’s job…. kinda sad isn’t it?
BillinGlendaleCA
@LosGatosCA: I got bored one night a few months ago and looked up where Howard Jarvis was buried. One of the commenters here wanted to piss on his grave. Turns out his crypt is about 4 miles from here.
LosGatosCA
@piratedan:
Don’t hate on Lara Logan. She probably doesn’t have access to pretzel chips and may have a phobia about Diet Cherry Pepsi. And without the right fuel, the brain waves never reach critical mass. The fingers can never punch in the magic Google words that lead to ‘the truth.’ Even if you spend a year staring at you computer screen
LosGatosCA
Have a great week!
scav
@Spaghetti Lee: For what it’s worth, old house in my family had one open, preumably for heating grate in the floor / ceiling that fascinated us as kids. Went straight through, no ducts, nothing, we could drop pennies on people answering the phone below or attempt to get them to land in the candy dish next to them. Physically, that would work, so long as it’s an old house. Massive bathroom in it too, clearly a regular (still largish) room repurposed. We don’t know what they were thinking though as it also was the one with the only door to the interior stairs. Anyone took a bath, you stayed put.
NotMax
@Yatsuno
That potentially absolutely ghastly.
Hope the memo included, in ALL CAPS, the notice that a bag of sugar and a package of plastic spoons will not be accepted as a contribution.
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
There’s a Disney movie coming out, about Uncle Walt, P.L. Travers, the Mary Poppins movie — and, from what I’ve read, why there’s just the one Mary Poppins movie. Absolutely no relation to the office potluck, or did someone from corporate HQ suggest an, ahem, appropriate theme?
fuckwit
First of all. Logan keeps her job because she’s
cutesmoking hot (just checked image search, cute is not even close), and that still counts way too much on TV.Secondly, she keeps her job because for fuck’s sake she was raped in public in the line of duty covering the Egypt revolution. That was probably a first for network TV, and one would hope it’d be the last too. So, the network feels guilty for that happening to her on their dime, and they will cut her a lot of slack just because of that.
And finally she keeps her job because the corporate media are right-wing shills, all of them, and they have no problem with spinning or outright lying to make Democrats look bad. Ever. Even if they get caught, they will do it again and again.
NotMax
#142 meant to be @Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Sigh.
Anon
@LosGatosCA: The ‘window’ came down a week after the original SLT article: http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4229135 .
LanceThruster
I thought property rights trumped all. It’s their window, they should pretty much be able to do what they damn well please.
ranchandsyrup
Another one of these middle fingers is on Hwy 82 right outside of Aspen (very near to Hunter Thompson’s home). Wife got the house and the barn in the divorce. Husband kept the plane. Barn is right by airport. She put a middle finger on the barn so he’d see it. #Aspenproblems