Simultaneously horrible and hysterical. Apparently some crazy lady principal of some school in Georgia forgot to allow the valedictorian to give his speech before ending the ceremonies, so people following the program started to get up and leave. Rather than appeal for calm, apologize, and ask them to sit down because she forgot to let him speak, she instead chose option B, which was to proceed to lose her shit in front of a crowd and blame black people:
I may be in the minority, but I wish something this interesting happened at my HS graduation (I went to my HS one but remember nothing, which is probably because we got stoned to the bejeezus prior, and I never went to any other graduations because they just seem like such a waste of time “Blah blah blah the world is your oyster you’re all wonderful now sod off and go get a job…”), and it sounds like the black audience on the tape were kind of in the same boat as me, and just along for the ride.
I know a lot of people get uncomfortable around public meltdowns and stare at the floor and just feel bad for the person, but I relish them. I love them. I think they are some of the greatest entertainment in the world. Probably my all time favorite moment of television is still and perhaps always will be was during the Hurricane Katrina telethon when Kanye West got real with the nationally televised audience and Mike Myers and NBC just weren’t ready for it:
And Kanye wasn’t wrong, but the look on Mike Myers face was just fucking awesome.
At any rate, I hope all these kids shake off that moon pie and mayonnaise sandwich eating backwoods redneck bigot, and have a good laugh about it every now and then over happy and successful lives. Y’all just had a graduation to remember.
Jerzy Russian
I am sure glad Al Gore invented the Internet, or otherwise I might not have known about this.
The most exciting thing that happened in my graduation is that a bunch of us had candy with us, and when we went to shake the principle’s hand, we each slipped him a piece.
bg
yeah but those kids had to put up with her racist shit for 3 or 4 years of high school.
that’s not funny
Wally Ballou
Crazy? Nope, just hateful and bigoted.
SiubhanDuinne
Sometimes living in Georgia is more damn trouble than it’s worth.
scav
@Jerzy Russian: We had pingpong balls and dropped them next to the guy handing us the pseudo-diploma. The non-event at mine was having my hat act as an airfoil and take off as I approached, as it would have apparently taken my hair with it — I’d just come off months of brain tumor recovery and mom made me wear a wig.
Corner Stone
That’s because you’re an asshole. Those kids didn’t want to be part of that.
Corner Stone
In other asshole news. ESPN fired Bill Simmons.
Kind of unceremoniously, as it were. He found out on Twitter.
JPL
According to CNN, she apologized
It was unfortunate that she mistook the white folks leaving for blacks. Anyone who is racist can make that mistake. She founded the school also.
JustRuss
Never saw that Kanye/Myers video before, quite awesome. I’m glad Kanye called out the “looting” thing, when you’re trapped in a city that’s half under water that should be called “survival”. While I agree Bush probably doesn’t care about black people, I don’t think that drove the Katrina fiasco. I highly doubt that FEMA would have been any more competent at rescuing white folks, because:
1. Competence was in short supply in the Bush administration.
2. Conservative dogma doesn’t view disaster preparation as a legitimate government function, so conservative regimes don’t take it seriously. Like counter-terrorism prior to 911.
Mike E
I can abide yer mayo hatred but Moonpies?! Good day, sir!
Percysowner
I do feel awful for the valedictorian, who was overlooked and then had to sit back while the principal humiliated herself. I do think it’s funny that once she said “it’s the black people leaving” suddenly the ones who had been sitting nicely and not making a fuss decided, welp I’m out of here and booked.
Schlemazel
Walter Mondale won a lot of votes at my graduation. It was a sweltering night with 6000 people crammed into the unairconditioned Civic Center. He got up and aid:
“I remember my graduation night, It was an uncomfortably warm evening. I remember we had a speaker. I do not remember what he said but I do remember it took him 45 minutes to say it. You will be pleased to note my speech is only 5 minutes!”
He got a standing ovation!
Suzanne
LMMFAO. That lady is completely crazy-balls. And every single person there knows it. I don’t even know how one gets from “Oops, I lost my place in the program,hold on a second,” to “I BLAME BLACK PEOPLE”. Like, whaaaaaaaaat.
Schlemazel
In 1995 I was driving south of New Orleans on Highway 61 (long story). We stopped to buy po’ boys at a little mom & pop gas station in the middle of nowhere. While we waited a woman dressed in her sunday best walked in & announced, “Well, thats he, he is expelled!”. An 18 year old boy, nicely dressed, with shoulder length hair followed her in. I asked what happened and he told me that the today was graduation day & he was class valedictorian. At the senior night party the day before the principal came up to him and said “If you think you are graduating tomorrow you are going to get a hair cut”. This kid had a full ride at one of the iveys and was worried this was going to mess that up but he stood his ground. It felt so strange to hear the same battle I fought 30 years earlier was still going on.
I often wonder how he is doing.
shell
Love that one guy saying ‘Don’t argue with a crazy person”
Howard Beale IV
And after playing that clip, one of the followup clips was one of C Plus Augustus himself, accusing Kanye of being a racist, and saying that Kanye’s statement was the lowest point of his Presidency-and you can see the rage in Shrub when asked about that.
We need to ask Bernie if he’d be willing to make the US part of the World Court. He’s been making lots of positive noises, but doing this would really cement his cred.
mclaren
John, you just explained Balloon-Juice’s commentariat in three sentences.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
Well, he did get re-elected to the Senate after that, this was early in his career.
My older brother was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, a national honor society. With that honor came a dinner. The after dinner speaker was some 80 year old guy who rambled pointlessly for over an hour and then announce, “But enough of the glittering generalities” and continued on for another 45 minutes. Almost nobody was awake at the end.
Ruckus
My graduation was pretty good. Standard stuff until we got to the cap and gown return/actual diploma pickup. Girl in front of me turned in her cap still wearing her gown, picked up the diploma off the counter and then took off her gown. She was pregnant. Real pregnant by the look of it. Now that doesn’t sound like much but that normally got a girl kicked out of school in the mid 60s. The woman behind the counter tried to grab the diploma but she just got laughed at. Very few people have ever looked as proud as that girl. If we all hadn’t been so stunned (she was a popular girl and I have no idea how she hid this) she probably would have gotten an ovation. She deserved it considering the pompous, conservative way this school was run.
shell
I always like Professor Dumbledores speech to the new students in ‘The Philosopher’s Stone.’
“Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you.”
Schlemazel
@Ruckus:
My SIL was very pregnant at her graduation in 1969. She was given her diploma but was not allowed to attend the ceremony. This was considered very progressive for the time.
JPL
@Suzanne: One would hope. If you watch the video, it is apparent but the way it is being reported is less clear. She ended the ceremony and then tried to recover. That is the part not mentioned. It’s not only blacks that got up to leave, it’s whites also and that’s not mentioned on the local channels. At least the local channels have covered it.
JPL
The lady is whacko… Read her excuse…
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/29022915/tnt-academy-principal-under-fire-after-offensive-remarks
It’s not my fault I screwed up.
PurpleGirl
The principal needs a couple of things: (1) a course at Toastmasters to learn to how to speak before groups, and (2) a secretary who knows to print one copy of the agenda/program for the principal in large type (say 16 point, san serif font) so that the principal can find and keep her place.
I think I’ve mentioned here that I stutter. For several years I was a reader at the church I attended. I typed out the passage I was reading, double space in 14 point, san serif type. It made it a lot easier to read in front of the congregation. Since I also had several different speech therapies, I knew how to speak in a measured manner that also helped to read. A course and Toasters would teach the principal that.
Pogonip
@shell: Words to live by.
This was a lot more intwresting than MY graduation, about which I remember very little other than the asshole assistant principal wanting to shake my hand. I exercised my newly won adult privilege of direct cutting and walked right past him and his outstretched hand. I heard a few snickers. I hope he, too, heard them, and heard them in his mind right up to his last moments.
And now I’ll probably be seated right beside him in Purgatory. It’s almost worth it. At least I can blow onion breath at him for a few million years. (I envision Purgatory as a room full of TVs and radios going full blast, tuned, respectively, to Villagers and Rush Limbaugh, and with nothing to eat but onions. I hate onions.)
JPL
@PurpleGirl: You are such a kind person. I think the principal needs to be handing out flyers in front of a pizza place.
scav
@JPL: Did you get to the (gulp) Daily Mail version? From that it seems she’d been having bossy moments all through the event, with side-comments about crying babies etc. From comments in either of the two articles, it appears the school’s web-site has poor grammar, so along with the clear evidence of impeccable people management skills and good judgement exhibited by the founder and principle on record, I’m not sure the publicity will do this little TNT establishment much good.
JPL
My graduation was uneventful. One of my sons hated high school and refused to walk. I supported his decision but when he asked if I would go with him to watch his friend walk, I said no. It just seemed to odd.
When he graduated from college, he walked and like the good mom, I had tears in my eyes.
JPL
@scav: I have a close friend who is out of town now, but the family is very involved in local education. Her husband has worked with the gov. I’m anxious to see what she thinks.
Several private schools are applying for aid under the charter school doctrine. I’m not sure if this is one.
Schlemazel
@Pogonip:
Rod Serling’s “Night Gallery” did a show were this young guy wakes up in a “grandma livingroom” with this old guy showing slides of a trip to Mexico. Long story short he figures out he died & this is hell. He talks with the devil & says that he understands he probably deserves hell but what did this sweet old man ever do to deserve hell. The devil says, “Oh no, he is in heaven, this is his heaven.” so, no onions but maybe for some guys that would be heaven.
Steve
Can’t tell from video whether more white or black people left, is there account on that?
Brachiator
Graduations, like weddings, funerals, etc are ceremonies that mark a right of passage. It may be ridiculous to some, the most important thing in the world to others. This fool didn’t just give people something to look back and laugh about. For some, she ruined a moment that they had been looking forward to for years, and insulted people, their friends and families.
It was good to see people in the audience push back against the stupidity.
Roger Moore
The main thing I remember about my high school graduation is that we were allowed to request somebody other than the principal hand us our fake diploma when we went up to the stage. I chose my swimming coach, who probably taught more more that was genuinely worthwhile than any other teacher in the school.
jake the antisoshul shoshulist
@Schlemazel:
The same thing happened to a classmzsy at my high school in 1970. Though it was more likely that they couldn’t think of a way to deny a diploma she had earned.
The high point of my graduation was a young woman brought in on a gurney. She had had a serious auto accident a few weeks before, but she was going tp graduatio. She got a standing ovation when her name was called.
Randy P
@Schlemazel: I loved the humorous episodes of “Night Gallery” and Personal Hell was a recurring theme in several of those. Another called “Pamela’s Voice” featured a guy being nagged in eternity by his wife, whom I believe he had recently murdered (it opens with him thinking the casket in the house is hers but it turns out to be… well, somewhat of a surprise).
Punch line: He’s in Hell; she’s in Heaven.
Tenar Darell
This was awful, and that principal should step down because she evidently sucks at an important part of her job. Giving speeches and presiding over events in front of young people and their families is her day to day job. She’s not supposed to be memorable.
I can tell you all from my own personal experience, I had a plain vanilla high school graduation, and I had a terrible, awful, no good very bad college graduation. I only really remember the bad graduation. And, I remember the bad bits of my college graduation significantly more clearly than the good ones. These kids will never forget their graduation, especially because the principal ruined it in the most memorable fashion.
I wonder what has been happening with enrollment for next year now that the principal’s true colors have been revealed so spectacularly?
PurpleGirl
I don’t remember of my high school graduation but it was held in a local movie theatre, only way to have parents attend because there were close to 1,000 in the class. I do remember the award ceremony for the Union Scholarship program, our guest speakers included Hubert Humphrey and Herman Badillo. I wish I could remember what Humphrey said.
I did want to attend my college ceremony and even though I still had something like 12 credits to do, the Dean allowed me to take part in the graduation for what should have been my year. It was important to me for several reasons — among them, it was the first year NYU was holding the ceremony in Washington Square Park and not Madison Square Garden and I was graduating. Of the three children in my family, I had finished college and I was proud. (However, I had to blackmail my father into attending because he didn’t want to take the time off from work. I told him, I have to use a vacation day because even as an NYU employee they didn’t give us the day off for our own graduation.)
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
It would not have even been thought of as a bad idea at my school. It just would not have been thought of at all. Girls get pregnant. Bad girls. If they had kept their legs closed, everything would have been fine. Maybe the originators of the aspirin idea. Assholes.
This is also the school that tried to expel a student who had put on the side of his car, a 55 Chevy wagon painted in black primer, the name of a popular beer in 2 ft high gold leaf. His parents fought back in court and he won his first amendment case. Did that ever tick off the school board. The students felt differently.
SiubhanDuinne
@Schlemazel:
Heh. My late ex-husband, who was raised Catholic, used to tell of the priest who gave the sermon (or homily, or whatever they call it) one steamy Sunday in July in an un-air-conditioned sanctuary in Miami.
The entire thing was, “If it’s as hot in Hell as it is in this church, I know you’ll all be very, very good.”
Kay Eye
At my high school graduation the Superintendent of Schools gleefully mispronounced the last name of every Mexican-American graduate. The Principal laughed along appreciatevely. Not the first or even the most insulting treatment heaped on the Hispanic students at our school, but at least the last.
If I meet those two men in Hell I am going to ask to be moved to a lower level.
Wally Ballou
My HS graduation was held at the Pontiac Silverdome. I like to joke that our class was one group of people, at least, who were able to finish the job on that field.
raven
I spent my high school graduation in Korea but I got my GED two months before the class of 67!
Ruckus
@Kay Eye:
Unless you’ve been a massive asshole your entire life I doubt that you’d end up on the same level.
Southern Beale
Recently read something about Bush’s response to Kanye’s remark, predictably awful. He was personally offended and insulted, never stopped to think that allowing an entire city of black people to drown might have given people the idea that he’s a callous SOB.
jl
I am supposed to go every year to a couple of graduations, since I teach a variety of professional and PhD students. So, I switch off. Except one where I teach a couple of core courses wants me to go every year, and they have the lousiest venue. Not enough room for the reception afterward, and hard to get the free food, say good-bye to students and meet their families.
I tried to finesse it for a few years by showing up in street clothes and sitting in the back of the auditorium. That was the best of both worlds. Don’t have to sit there like some pompous goofball in a pompous perfesser academic gown on the stage, a quick dash into the lobby gets me some nourishment and lubrication, and I can pick off the students as they come out. But, I was diplomatically informed that my truly brilliant and I think socially, maximally efficient, approach did not count, and I needed to get my ass up there on the stage to get my graduation ceremony attendance brownie points.
This year, they gave me a cap that seemed like a size too small, felt like I had to balance it all during the ceremony. I sat next to my best buddy on the faculty and she tried to crack me up all during the ceremony, and the stupid cap fell off as I tried to walk all dignified off the stage.
Had a very great commencement speaker. Was a last minute substitute for some corporate poo-bah who cancelled. Figures. But it was a good thing. Commencement speaker rocked. But hell, she just had a life full of adventure and service and amazing accomplishment in far flung obscure and interesting places around the US and the globe helping poor forgotten sick people, never made a boatload of money or big press, so I don’t think she is on anybody’s list of commencement speakers. But she had fascinating stories and actual, real, useful life advice.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Landed in Charlotte and now have a 5-hour flight to LA to look forward to. I’m probably going to try and sleep. At least G will be meeting me at the end of all of this. And there will be kittehs who will want snuggles.
scav
@jl: I’d forgotten. I’ve generally had zip to little interest in any of my graduations, but I did have a lot of fun at one of them discovering all the extremely fine headgear the foreign faculty managed to sport. One of the best was something like a Shriners’ but entirely covered in electric blue fringe.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Graduation story: I have graduated three times (high school, undergrad, and MFA) and my name was mispronounced at every one of them. My IRL name is an unusual Italian one, but even the people for whom I had spelled it phonetically mispronounced it.
Many people are convinced they “know” how to pronounce my first name, and most of them are horribly wrong.
smintheus
For my HS commencement I wrote a speech mocking the idea of commencement speeches. It was a monologue that started out sounding as if it were a speech, but turns out to be a corporate drone talking (down) at a job candidate he’s interviewing – whom he will never hire because he’s already hired somebody for that job.
Still wish I had delivered that speech, instead of the slightly less sarcastic one I did give. I thought it was clever, but I figured it might make some grandparents upset.
Chet
@Schlemazel: Over Christmas last year I eavesdropped on a conversation between my sister and a female cousin in her 20s. The cousin was talking about how the women at the accounting office she works at are more or less expected to wear skirts and heels every day. My sister was shocked, because she worked at the same company (albeit a different location) in the late ’90s and they had no problem with women in pants and flats at that time.
It’s dispiriting to think that young people are going to have to keep fighting the same battles over the same shit again and again and again.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I joke that in the job I had in professional sports some people got my name wrong all the time. There are 7 letters in my first and last name and only one of them is in the word asshole.
Alison
Okay, I know this is a long-shot and it will make me seem like a big dork (WHICH I AM) but does anyone here happen to play Animal Crossing? I wanna get the rest of the non-tropical fruit, and my stupid villagers never send me any as return gifts.
Rich Gardner
I had a teacher lose her shit a number of times. It was during Junior High/Middle School, 1972 to 1974. Vietnam was a real big issue back then and people were getting really frazzled about it. I got used to her outbursts after a few times (“This is what’s wrong with this country today!!!”) and she did it again just as I was presenting a paper to the class.
I adopted a stone face, waited and listened. When she wound down, I picked up where I left off and presented my paper. She was fine with that as she had gotten it out of her system for the moment.
Don’t remember whether I liked that or disliked it. It was certainly a learning experience as I picked up a lot of tips on rhetoric and speeches.
jl
@scav: I’m too cheap to lay out a grand for my grad schools totally outrageous contraption. So, I just wear whatever generic black or dark green gown the departments rent. Important thing is you get the academic hood right. Everyone was fussing with them before the ceremony, and a lot of us had ours taken off and redone because we had it backward, or upsie down, or the school colors pulled out to far, or not enough, or the little buttons and latches were not done right. So, then people see the damn thing for a few minutes while you walk in the parade and then you sit on it for two or three hours. While everyone was fussing with them, I wondered loudly why the dumb gowns aren’t called ‘hoodies’.
Oh, yeah, i forgot, I got my academic hood caught in the folding chair, and I almost brought the chair up and sent it flying when I stood up to march out. But I caught it in time. Not my best year for academic decorum.
So, we got us two fluorescent red ‘Chinese scholar’ caps. One old school top hat with academic heraldry gimmicks around it, a couple of weird floppy squashed down top hats with huge brims, something that looks like an eighteenth century turban David Hume might have worn getting out of his bath, except it is a deep purple velvet. A a couple of other werido headgear I don’t remember well enough to describe. Let’s see, something that looks like a huge tam o’shanter, and something that looks like a golf cap, but no brim.
muddy
I missed HS graduation because I ended up a quarter short of gym credit because I got kicked out of the class for leaving the locker room early to smoke. One quarter out of 16 goddamn quarters of gym and no graduation. I was ironing the gown when my counselor called me and told me not to show up. My mom made me put it on and parade around in the yard while she took pictures, pretending I was actually graduating. I have a face like thunder throughout, and trying to sneak giving the finger without her noticing.
I was supposed to be going to college in the fall so they let me do this thing football players did over the summer to keep in shape. From 6-8 am 5 days a week, summer after senior year. Da fuq. Running through tires and what not. My mom said she hoped I learned my lesson, and I said the lesson was that this was bullshit.
When my son graduated, I had him march around the yard for pics to preserve family tradition. Except he was allowed to openly give the finger and was grinning like a fool. I have his pic and mine in a double frame, it’s really funny.
gogol's wife
At my graduation someone who wasn’t supposed to graduate (they had told him at the rehearsal that morning) showed up and break-danced across the stage. It was awesome.
ETA: I’m not sure what the past tense of “break-dance” is.
Ruckus
@gogol’s wife:
All things considered “broke danced” might be appropriate.
Glidwrith
I was part of the HS band, so ended up in every graduation playing the most boring rendition possible of “Pomp and Circumstance”. I remember one Valedictorian that called folks out on the carpet for shitting on people that were a little different (aka, for that area, smart enough to get the hell out of that shitty little town). You could hear a pin drop after that rant.
A few years later, it was my turn. I kept it pretty short, saying we would always have piece of the school with us, especially if we ate in the cafeteria and quoted a poem from a biography on Marie Curie.
But that previous Valedictorian was right. I had pulled the only 4.0 in my class, but because I was female, certain elements thought I should share the honors with the male Salutatorian. Yes, all these years later, I still remember. My parents threw a hissy fit, so it didn’t happen, but it was the capper on multiple years demonstrating there was no place for anyone who had any brains (which meant actually caring about school grades) or ambition (which meant actually wanting to go to college and leave the valley) and thus was “different”.
Graduating class of 147. Number that actually left the area: 2.
jo6pac
Sad as old white guy here we are. They have done a great job of races hating one another for what ever reason. Sad because we are all in this to gather. Tears on this:(
PurpleGirl
@jl: In the academic robe and hood you could probably be an extra on Wolf Hall. I think the academic gown and hood are probably derived from the attire of that period (at least for men).
ruemara
@Alison: Boy, I used to. Haven’t done it in too long to be useful though.
Howard Beale IV
@Wally Ballou:
Mine was held at Ford Auditorium in Downtown. Class of 1976. I was the youngest in my graduation class and learned how to program COBOL before I learned how to drive.
jl
@Glidwrith: HS orchestra and band here, so same thing. One year we played an abridged Academic Festival Overture, and the conductor explained the musical jokes. So that made it fun to play. Was nice to play student drinking songs in between old farts getting up on stage and old farting about the importance of old fart stuff.
I remember a commencement speaker trying to be all Brooksian and this guy started talking about the importance of retaining traditional virtues of respect for authority and the traditional values of society. He wanted to tick off some old dead white guys, so started with Aeschylus, Sophocles (?), Euripides (!!??). I looked around to the other professors’ faces to see who saw the problem there. A few did.
Edit: looks like this old fart got his info from the same sources that Brooks does.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Good story, proud Poppa.
@muddy: See, I fell behind in the credit count early in college. (As I said earlier, I still needed something like 12 credits.) But the Dean knew my story and why and I also worked in his office. So he allowed me to attend the ceremony for my class. He was a nice person and I was thankful he let me do that.
Glidwrith
@jl: Snicker.
Edit: Just like MLK was a Rethug and Democrats are the real racists. They really are all surface and no substance, aren’t they?
Heywood J.
Kanye only had it part right — it’s not so much that Bush doesn’t care about black people, but that he doesn’t care about poor people. Like any Bush worth the name, he understands them as being another species. Why didn’t they pick better parents that could get them into Yale and find them cushy sinecures, that sort of thing.
Keith P.
Actually, if you delay the audio by about 3 seconds, she doesn’t look nearly as bad. Or maybe play it in reverse.
muddy
@PurpleGirl: I hated my hs and in the end I’m happier to have the anecdote as an emblem of how much it sucked, cherry on top sort of thing. I’m in the same class year anyway.
Plantsmantx
@JPL:
In the apology she posted on the internet, she said the Devil was in the house, and came out of her mouth.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEmOgKlUgAAMk8J.jpg:large
Here’s her son’s reaction to people criticizing his mother:
http://starcasm.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Travis-Gordeuk.jpg
jl
@Heywood J.: I heard Jeb! on radio today. Looks like Jeb! is going for hard overt hate pander to the fundies and the scrooges. Christians (well, the right kind of intolerant Xtianist fundie Christians, any other kind don’t count) are being persecuted by the secular tyrant Obama trying to bend our Christian nation to his arrogant and oppressive secular will. What kind of real president would do that? Would George Washington do that? Would he show such disregard for Christian piety? Surely not. And some comments that rival Mitt’s infamous 47 percenter comments.
So Jeb! is flopping all over the ideological spectrum like a beached whale in its death throes, albeit a relatively slender whale compared to his nearest political kin, but still whale like.
I mean, damn, if Jeb! is going in that direction, he will be pumping out this bilge for the next year at least. That won’t haunt him in the general? Fear of a GOP primary planet, I guess. He has to survive politically in loon land, probably. But it is kind of blatant. None of the clever political finesse that Dub could show. Dub sure could campaign, if nothing much else.
There is this saying that Jeb! is the smart one. Um…. where did that come from? Are people sure about that?
Corner Stone
@Heywood J.:
Like GWB’s mom Bar said during the Katrina “refugees” in Houston at the time, “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says, ‘We’re going to move to Houston.’ What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.”
muddy
He’s the smart one because there’s not much competition.
Corner Stone
@Plantsmantx: I can’t blame it on her son. I’d want to Hulk Smash shit, too.
muddy
@Corner Stone: Jeb has his mother’s mean face.
max
@jl: There is this saying that Jeb! is the smart one. Um…. where did that come from?
Money.
Fear of a GOP primary planet, I guess. He has to survive politically in loon land, probably. But it is kind of blatant.
Money.
That won’t haunt him in the general?
Money.
max
[‘The answer to all questions about Jeb Bush’s strategy and tactics is one word: money. Why he’s running, how he intends to win the primaries, how he intends to campaign, how he intends to win the general.’]
Corner Stone
@muddy: They’re all a bunch of bullys.
All those rich fucks need a dose of the VDE treatment.
muddy
@Corner Stone: What’s that?
caroln
The graduation stories are fun to read, also how hell intersects with these, which my HS graduation was. 800 of us sitting in folding chairs on the gymnasium floor, spectators in the bleachers, probably was 100 degrees with a humidity to match. Nothing happened, it just took forever.
I believe that this woman’s horrible behavior would never have happened in a PUBLIC school system.
Alison
@ruemara: I played it years ago (the Wild World edition) and loved it, but my first DS Lite was stolen, then the second one went kaput and I didn’t want to spend the money to send it to Nintendo to have it fixed. Then they got rid of the old DSs and had only the 3D ones, which I couldn’t use. But when they came out with the 2DS, I started thinking, hmmmmmm…and eventually just decided to splurge on it and get into the New Leaf edition.
It’s funny how easily absorbing it is. I find myself flinging serious curses at fish and bugs. Like I said, I am a dork. :)
Corner Stone
@muddy: Tumbrel rides and/or guillotines.
Rinse and repeat as needed.
I, personally, am fine with rough populist sentiment on the upswing.
muddy
@Corner Stone: Me too.
Kay
@Plantsmantx:
It’s an alternative school. I don;t really know what means in Georgia. It looks like last year Georgia included them in the testing requiremehts that apply to homeschoolers, and they weren’t happy about that. They also do “credit recovery” for public school kids who fail a course required for graduation.
The woman on the tape is the founder of the school.
Kay
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/white-georgia-teacher-under-fire-for-black-people-/nmCtW/
max
@efgoldman: Was he not paying attention last time? That’s what Mittster and his people thought, too.
Well, 1) he has MORE money and 2) direct your question to the RNC, because what the hell else have they got?
The Jesus And Mary Chain – Blues From A Gun
max
[‘It takes three elections to teach politicians anything.’]
SiubhanDuinne
@Plantsmantx:
Whoa. He’s a sweetheart, isn’t he?
ruemara
@Plantsmantx: He’s just a chip off the lovely block, isn’t he. Oh well. A friend has invited me out for Bachata. She’s lucky I’m still wearing travel clothes or I’d sit here and play wow, or do some more job hunting.
Here’s some cute hippie festival fun for you.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Kay:
WTF?
Ruckus
@max:
Some people are so dense that getting beaten three times about the head and shoulders wouldn’t make any difference, public humiliation has even less of an effect.
You can’t beat anything into them, or out of them.
The Bush family is a collection of these.
Jeb may be the smart one. In this group a tiny pile of snake shit wouldn’t pass under that bar so how could you tell?
opiejeanne
@efgoldman: My graduating class had 4 valedictorians, in 1968. The school decided to have tryouts for the speech and a kid with a B+ average won the honor, and he was great. Those same 4 kids with top grades also were National Merit Scholars, which really pissed off the organization that awarded that honor because they didn’t like giving even two to a class of 300 kids, but all 4 had scores of 155, and 160 was the top score. I don’t remember that anyone other than that speaker and the superintendent made any remarks at the ceremony, which was held on the football field with the parents seated in the stands. If it had rained we would have been in the gym, but the weather was nice. Afterwards they bussed us off to a train trip down to San Diego to a hotel on Mission Bay where we had the all night party. Some kids walked on the roof of the train and got caught.
I was in the band the previous two years at graduation and the director tried mightily to get away with playing something other than Pomp and Circumstance every year, but the Superintendent liked the piece so that was that. I can’t remember what else we played.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
You have to run with the advantages you have, not the advantages you wish you had. JEB! has money rather than brains or a coherent policy platform, so that’s what he’s going to run on.
Eric U.
Jeb probably would get away with this if he gets the republican nom. For one thing, the dems are going to have a hard time making the point that he’s nuts. And the press will gloss over it
Ruckus
@Eric U.:
Showing that he’s nuts is easy. Getting the media to come close to showing that will be the hard part. Of course by the time it comes to the election he may have stuck both feet so far down his throat that even with the media trying to hide it, it will be obvious. Conservatives have gone so far down the road to crazy that it is starting to be noticeable to more than just the rabid left. The real questions are how far down the road will they be in a yr and a half and how many voters are willing to join them.
Aleta
High school graduation: For some reason thought it would be funny to get stoned with my older cousin, listening to early Black Sabbath (before they got weird) and Emerson Lake & Palmer, and wear nothing under the gown. Didn’t realize we had to turn the gowns in on the way out of the auditorium.
College graduation: Saw no reason to go, thought it better idea to climb Mt. Adams and Monroe. My astronomy professor offered to come along, bring the tent. Didn’t realize he was more interested in the moment I would cease to be a student.
fuckwit
@Southern Beale: It’s the personal vs political thing. According to all accounts I’ve seen, he’s always been polite, friendly, and nice to black people in person– well, at least he wasn’t any more of an asshole to them then he was to white people. But it was his politics and policies that were straight-up racist. And he was not self-aware enough to recognize that. So Kanye’s comment hurt him; he was so clueless that he had no idea it was coming.
El Caganer
I don’t remember whether or not I went to my high school graduation. Too many years, too much alcohol.
Amir Khalid
@Aleta:
Don’t keep us in suspense. How did you handle the situation?
Aleta
@Amir Khalid: Not thinking too clearly (due to prior mistake), I ran. And my grandmother had come all that way.
redshirt
I was class president and captain of 3 sports AMA.
Gene108
@fuckwit:
Look at the racial / ethnic / gender make-up of Bush, Jr’s Cabinet. A lot of firsts for African-Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos and women holding Cabinet positions and other key advisory positions in his Administration; as much as many of them were no better at their jobs than he was as President is beside the point, he had a very inclusive a Cabinet.
I do not think, at a personal level he is racist. I think, like most any Republican, he is incapable of understanding or caring about what will actually help most minorities.
Bill Murray
A good song about Commencement Day from the Blue Scholars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRkhiFmsPHU
JDM
@Suzanne: when you’re a hammer,they’re all nails.
Chris
I continue to think the “You’re Not Special” graduation speech that had so many (including, to my enduring disgust, quite a few of my fellow students) swooning wins the medal for worst graduation speech ever given.
In between four years of being preemptively sucked dry by the most obscenely profit-driven educational system in the developed world, and a couple decades of seeing every leftover bit of their paychecks disappear down a black hole to pay that system… in between the years of unpaid internships where they’re treated as disposable bottom-of-the-rung coffee room attendants and the years of underemployment before they finally (if they’re lucky) land a job in the field they’re looking for… you would think the graduates could get just ONE DAY that’s about them and not about getting shit on by some asshole whose only claim to fame is being somebody’s son.
And you would be wrong.
Exurban Mom
Many years ago, Bill Cosby was the speaker at my college graduation. He gave a terrific speech about how my classmates and I probably felt like the world now owed us something. But instead, he believed we owed the world our best efforts to make it a better place. Until recently, I was honored to have heard that speech…
Hurling Dervish
@Southern Beale: Entertainment Weekly reports (via Rap Radar) that Matt Lauer, in an interview to be televised soon, asked Bush about Kanye’s famous statement, on a Hurricane Katrina benefit telethon, that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Bush told Lauer, “it was one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency.”
Bush went on, “He called me a racist. And I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.’ It’s another thing to say, ‘This man’s a racist.’ I resent it, it’s not true.”
The interview was to promote Bush’s new book, Decision Points. Lauer read aloud a piece of the book, in which Bush calls the moment “an all-time low” and pointed out another in which Bush tells his wife that it was the worst moment of his presidency. Bush writes, “I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low.”
Bush told Lauer, “Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt ’em when I heard ’em, felt ’em when I wrote ’em, and I felt ’em when I’m listening to ’em.”
EW also quotes the following exchange:
Lauer: “I wonder if some people are going to read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this–”
Bush [interrupting]: “Don’t care.”
Lauer: “Well, here’s the reason. You’re not saying that the worst moment in your presidency was watching the misery in Louisiana. You’re saying it was when someone insulted you because of that.”
Bush: “No, and I also make it clear that the misery in Louisiana affected me deeply as well. There’s a lot of tough moments in the book. And it was a disgusting moment, pure and simple.”
Chris
@Hurling Dervish:
“Doing something bad isn’t as cruel nd mean and just plain wrong as being called on it,” the butthurt white man’s motto everywhere from Wall Street to the NYPD to Abu Ghraib.
Every time the teabaggers do something that makes him look good by comparison, I just have to read something like this to remember what a disgusting piece of shit he really was.
opiejeanne
@Chris: I don’t think I ever heard that speech. I would have been disgusted as you were.