This morning, I was reading an article about seagulls at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “All About Birds” site. Many people dislike seagulls, and it’s true that they can come off as obnoxious beach pigeons.
But if you can look past their propensity to snatch a Dorito out of your hand and shit all over your car and instead focus on their social behavior, seagulls display some admirable traits, including the ability to learn to ignore the hysterical morons within their colonies:
[Nobel Prize-winning animal behavior researcher Nikolaas] Tinbergen observed that Herring Gulls also learn which individuals are worth paying attention to. He noted that they ignore alarm calls from individuals they know to be skittish, but freak out when trusted neighbors utter a sound.
So even among seagulls, there are Chicken Littles, and the wiser gulls learn to pay them no mind. There’s a lesson here for us flightless creatures, who will be exposed to a constant barrage of “SKREE! SKREE! SKREE!” for the next few months. We all get to choose what kind of gull we want to be.
Open thread!
Trentrunner
I want to be the prodigull son who sings madrigulls as I work temp for Gull Friday wondering what all the gullaballoo was about.
And then I ran, I ran so far away…
Elizabelle
Why, thank you. Perspective.
schrodinger's cat
Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
MattF
I agree that hyperventilation is rarely the best response to a threatening situation.
Emma
So totally off politics. I am on the second day of a campaign to get rid of books. Not just any books. My beloved 1950s, 60s, and some 70s science fiction and mystery paperbacks. Turns out my bouts of respiratory distress are tied to the existence of these cheaply-printed-on-bad-paper titles. They are mouldering and disintegrating and some are unreadable. There are some I would never read again. AND it turns out I can get Kindle copies of most of them at a reasonable price.
Doesn’t make me feel any better. At all.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: Isn’t he that guy who comes around here touting Bernie and the radical socialist front of Louisiana?
Miss Bianca
@Emma: I feel your pain. Even tho’ it’s unlikely I will be letting them back in my life any time soon, I am still paying for storage space for boxes and boxes of dead tree books, because someday I *will* be back in my house and they *will* be back on my bookshelves! As God is my witness!
Gin & Tonic
Rats with wings.
Mike J
The other day I saw two juvie eagles chasing a gull. Weird. They usually just ignore each other.
Frankensteinbeck
Seagulls have also learned how to hunt whales. Almost all dinosaurs had feathers and seagulls are predators on whales. Truly, this is the Century of Bird.
Cacti
@Emma:
Yer breakin’ my heart.
Old book smell is one of my favorite smells on earth.
eldorado
i remember being quite embarrassed having to ask my third grade teacher what the word ‘wry’ meant when i was reading that book, because it was such a short word. that i missed the point of the book because i was like eight years old didn’t occur to me for quite a few years later.
Hildebrand
Its almost like people are surprised that after a couple of pretty shitty weeks for Clinton that her poll numbers would fall a bit. Cause and effect, how does it work.
SiubhanDuinne
The best seagulls I ever saw — and certainly the densest seagull population — was years and years ago in the little port town of Mallaig on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. When I was there (mid-1970s) it was known as the “kipper capital of the world,” and was the busiest herring port in Europe. I was there for a few hours, having spent the day traveling by train from Edinburgh-Glasgow and then Glasgow-Mallaig, to catch the ferry that would take me to the Isle of Skye. The air absolutely reeked of fish, of course, both fresh-caught and kippered. And the seagulls were both numerous and fearless. You literally couldn’t walk two steps without almost tripping on a gull. They refused to move out of the way even when you flapped at them. Bold little bastards, but there was something very appealing about their tenacity and enormous appetites.
Emma
@Cacti: Old book smell is best if you can get your hands on books printed in the late 19th to the (more or less) middle of the 20th century. They were routinely made with a certain percentage of rags mixed in with the pulp. They last much longer and have that lovely dusty smell.
Mnemosyne
Glad to be hanging out with my Democratic in-laws today so we can have an afternoon of Trump-bashing.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Speaking of hysteria, not sure if this has been mentioned here, but a two year old hoax is making the rounds again. Supposedly Anonymous has declared Friday a Day of Rage and Black Lives Matter protesters are going to go supernova at specific places, at specific times, in cities throughout the US, according to right-wing and conspiracy loon websites. A high school classmate posted about it on FB, and I made the mistake of posting a Snopes link and pointing out that Atlanta already had protests and if the city didn’t burn down by now, it probably wouldn’t. She got surprisingly abusive in response, I guess because I wasn’t cowering enough for her liking.
If there weren’t so much at stake and they weren’t so damned destructive, it would be funny to watch these people freak out and wet their pants over black people existing in the same universe as them.
Emma
@Miss Bianca: I have dragged hither and yon every time I’ve moved. Books are family. But in this case, it can’t be helped. And truly they are in a dismal shape. And I’m truly at the stage of not wanting more STUFF. Nevertheless I have a small list of those I will replace with dead tree editions.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I never liked seagulls.
But boy, they’ve been just about wiped out entirely here in San Diego by our new arrivals, crows. They’re in competition for the same food sources and the crows are so much smarter, stronger and more aggressive that it’s just been no contest. The seagulls are largely gone. I’ll see one or two every now and then. Not the thousands I did even fifteen years ago.
And everything you didn’t like about seagulls, well, crows do it more often and louder.
Emma
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Sometimes it seems that being in a constant panic is the only thing that gives their lives meaning.
Villago Delenda Est
Do seagulls know better than to believe anything that comes out of Donald Drumpf’s piehole?
Betty Cracker
@Emma: I think the adoption of pants-soiling as a lifestyle choice got much more intense after 9/11.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker: Home of the Brave, my ass. Home of cowardly bedwetters.
rikyrah
@Emma:
Getting rid of books? ????
I would be heartbroken ???
FlipYrWhig
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Is this before or after they drive around with their headlights off and then shoot you if you flick your lights at them? Before or after they put diseased hypodermic needles in the gas pump handles? I mean, all these urban legends are part of one coordinated plot, right?
NotMax
@Emma
Even though it’s a little odd to talk about sniffing those once one becomes aware that a goodly portion of the rags consisted of used undergarments.
Brachiator
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
I heard that it was a herd of nerds playing Pokemon that was going to go supernova in cities throughout the US.
Hildebrand
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I don’t know, having crows about is so much more mood setting than seagulls. Not sure if its the mood San Diego wants, but it certainly adds that special bit of sinister feel to the area.
Peale
@Emma: Down with Books. Down with Books! I declare this a day of rage and will protest all cheap paperbacks. May they burn, burn, burn. Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Fictional worlds just got to go!
Villago Delenda Est
@Hildebrand: That and Darryl Issa
Emma
@rikyrah: I am heartbroken. I search each title in Amazon to make sure I can find a replacement. I make lists of the ones I want to replace with paper copies. It’s the slowest clean-out in history!
The problem truly is the paper. Most of the paperbacks printed after WWII were printed on the cheapest wood pulp paper and that sucker doesn’t stay in good shape for very long. When it goes it becomes a haven with all kind of critters and it flings out pulp dust mixed with said critters with abandon. So… my lungs win. Dammit.
germy
Last week after a spell of hot weather I developed a thirst for some beer. I decided to try out the beverage center around the corner.
They had a decent selection, but one thing turned me off. When I approached the counter with my four-pack, they asked for my driver’s license. (I was born during the Eisenhower administration). Okay, I know some places proof everyone regardless of how ancient we are (not sure why), but usually this involves the clerk looking at your driver’s license.
In the beverage center, the guy scanned my driver’s license quickly when I held it out. Now I suspect forevermore I’ll be getting “special offers” in the mail. I didn’t appreciate having my license scanned. I will not return.
hellslittlestangel
gull
· v. fool or deceive (someone).
· n. a person who is fooled or deceived.
Do gulls fly as far inland as Cleveland?
Emma
@Peale: Bite your tongue! Guards, remove this rogue!
Iowa Old Lady
@Emma: I’ve done that. I was just running out of shelf space. It’s painful.
Prescott Cactus
Keep your seagulls, I’ll be in Omaha, somewhere in middle America, Counting Crows.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
speaking of irritating garbage pickers that communicate through shrieking, I was a little surprised that Sarah Palin didn’t make the cut for the convention, then I remember the only time Trump appeared relatable to me was during her endorsement speech when he seemed for all the world to be having a normal human reaction, a mix of bewilderment, barely concealed impatience and wondering when the hell she was gonna shut up.
and I didn’t ever find out what the hell pokemon was, I’m not gonna find out this time why all the hipsterrer than thou twitter people are raking Clinton over the coals for making a lame joke about it.
Barbara
@Emma: If they are in reasonable shape — not disintegrating — your local library might take them. My local library takes all books and magazines of general interest less than 12 months old. They hold a book sale every so often and the proceeds go to the library. My other favorite donee for adult books is my local nursing home, but they usual want recent books and don’t want books that are dusty.
Emma
@NotMax: Yeah. Funny that. Did you ever see the series Connections? There’s one episode where he ties the lack of rags for papermaking (I think it was because women stopped wearing petticoats) to something else– I wish I could remember what it was. *scurries off to YouTube*
NotMax
@Emma
Someone will have to pry the tête-bêche Ace Doubles from the reach of my cold, dead fingers.
Paper so cheap it probably began yellowing before ink was applied.
Mike J
@hellslittlestangel:
Tons of gulls there. Lake Erie.
Emma
@NotMax: Yeah. *sigh*
Roger Moore
@Emma:
Getting rid of something you love is never easy; I hope it makes you feel a little bit better to know that they don’t love you back. I personally found getting rid of a bunch of paper books to be liberating in the long run; if nothing else, it’s nice to know that you can free up that space for something else.
germy
Looking forward to seeing the president’s town hall tonight at 8:00.
Emma
@Barbara: I worked for a short span of my career for a public library and sorting through donations was my favorite job. Alas, these are really not in any shape. My professional self would be appalled.
Emma
@Roger Moore: I still haven’t tackled the massive CD collection…
Feathers
Was tempted to correct the tourists on Boston Common wondering what the big pigeons were mixed in with the regular ones. But I didn’t. They were having so much fun wondering about it. No thought at all that there might be birds other than pigeons in the city. It’s so easy to forget on the Boston city streets that the ocean is only a few blocks away.
Trollhattan
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Crows have taken over the skies and trees of our metroplex to the devastation of other birds especially, it would seem, songbirds. They’ve recovered from West Nile and are just everywhere, all the time.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: My mother often tells me that she wonders how we possibly could have coped with WWII with the fearful attitudes she sees in so many people now. “Everybody is afraid of something.” Of course, we panicked then too — Japanese internment — but an awful lot of people risked their lives without giving it too much thought. Then again, I also believe that fear is as much a rationalization of prejudice as its cause. So much easier to defend your inbred animosity if you can find an excuse for it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Emma: getting rid of my CDs was easy, especially when I realized I no longer own a functioning CD players. I tried to cull my book collection and came up with three I was willing to part with, one a second copy. I’ve been shopping for bookshelves for a couple of years, too cheap to buy really good ones, so I have stacks of books all over the house.
Betty Cracker
@germy: There’s a PBO town hall? Damn! I’m working late. Might have to take a break to catch part of it, but then I’d have to work even later! Oh well. Surely it’ll be available for streaming…
kindness
Back in the day I made a point to ignore Flock Of Seagulls. I mean, their odd hairstyles were the only thing that stood out about them. After listening to this track I can see I was correct.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
I remember when the wonderful TV show “Connections” discussed how an unfortunate little event helped spur the rise of the use of printing.
After the printing press began to catch on in Europe, a goodly portion of the rags used for better quality paper came from the excess clothing of plague victims.
@Emma:
I hope you are able to replace most of your books.
I love to read and have carted around a ton of books from place to place. The last time I moved, the movers were actually surprised that I wanted to take my books along, and not discard them. But the new technology has shown me that I love reading, not just books. Ultimately, I am no more nostalgic for books than I would be for scrolls or clay tablets. I just wish that there were more Kindle type books that also embedded audio and video.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
The gulls out at the end of Long Wharf downtown here must be the most photographed birds in the world. They have a knack for standing on the top of the most photogenic spots overlooking the harbor just in time for tourist selfies – or it’s the same one who’s got his photobombing game down.
Why hello...
Y’all we have a game changer–Antonio Sabato Jr. is speaking at the RNC convention (((swoon)))
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@germy: Same thing happens to me – I think there are laws about entering a date or something. I think they’re just reading some date code.
Here’s a list of things encoded on the back, by state.. (No statement of the validity of the page on my part.)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Emma
The original series was instantly added to the must watch list the moment it first aired in the U.S. back in 1979. One of the first (if not the first) series committed to videotape for re-viewing on the shiny newish Betamax. (Those blank tapes were not exactly cheap at the time, either.)
The much later sequels lack the verve of the original series and pale in comparison.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I used to be like this and then I saw my kids emulating me. Now I have only two questions I ask myself before parting with a book: Do I want to read it? Or, do I want to read it again? If the answer is no, to the library it goes (or the nursing home or a friend if I think they would enjoy it). That way, I can buy more books with a good conscience. I still keep a lot of what I own, especially reference and specialized books.
J R in WV
@hellslittlestangel:
Oh, yeah! Cleveland is right on that big Great Lake, where the iron ore and such came in on freighters. Lake gulls – no salt, but the same attitudes.
Miss Bianca
OK, speaking of bird brains…
So, the online store I manage was kicked off Amazon before I took it over. They approached me earlier this year about getting back on. i draft the plan, it gets accepted, I set everything up the way it’s supposed to, and tell the customer service rep that we are ready to go.
Or so I thought.
That was at the end of March. We’re getting no sales, my boss is getting impatient, I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, the customer service rep is not getting back to me, meanwhile my account says “inactive” all these months – altho’ Amazon is billing me as tho’ we *are* active – and every time I call the tech people to ask what’s going on, they say it’s active at *their* end.
Finaolly the customer service rep gets back to me this afternoon and says, “oh, you were supposed to tell me that all the steps in the appeal letter had been put in place. Then I activate your account.”
It’s like – “WHAT?”
What the FUCK have you been doing billing me all these months? And not once saying, “gee, I notice it’s been a while – when are you going to put in so many words that we are ready to go?”
Am I just a schmuck, or is this situation fucked up??
FlyingToaster
@germy: It may not be nefarious. Some places have garnered enough violations that they use scanners to verify that the license is genuine. So corporate policy is to scan all drivers’ licenses for validity.
Stop&Shop does it when I buy OTC cold medications. It takes about a second for the register to beep, and the checker goes on to the next item on the belt.
Anoniminous
@NotMax:
Everybody burbles on about Campbell and his influence but Carr and Wollheim were much more important IMO.
germy
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: @FlyingToaster: I see from the link provided by Scott that the beverage center got my social security number.
The asshole scanned it before I even knew what he was doing. I thought he just wanted to look at it. I think we give up too much personal info nowadays. Maybe I’m being a seagull about this…
Roger Moore
@Emma:
That, at least, you can shrink by a large percentage by getting rid of the cases. If you’re technically savvy, you can shrink it even more by ripping the CDs to FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), which will preserve the original CD information perfectly and just take up space on your hard drive. They even make serious stereo components that can play it, so any audiophile who is willing to listen to CDs should be willing to listen to FLACs.
Emma
@Brachiator: I’ll probably be replacing 90% of them with Kindle versions. You’re right in that when you realize that it’s the story you don’t want to lose it becomes a lot less stressful. But these books and I have a history. I bought them with the money from my first part-time job at our local comic book/used book store. It’s letting go of a big part of my life.
Cermet
You mean chicken little’s screaming “Hillary is behind in the polls! She will lose; what will we do!”
Like those dumb clucks … (being polite in my language … .)
Emma
@Miss Bianca: You’re not a schmuck.
NotMax
@Anonimous
Might you be confusing Campbell with Burke?
Mai.naem.mobile
A fucking big truck has mowed down a bunch of people in Nice where people were celebrating Bastille Day. Can we have one single week without one of these incidents happening. Speculating of course,but I’m guessing it’s jihad/ISIL crap.
Anoniminous
@NotMax:
John Campbell
ETA: Could be showing my age?
cmorenc
@Cacti:
I kind of like it too, until it begins to cross over into hints of dank mildew beginning to attack the pages. I’ve still got my engineering and math texts from 25 years ago on the shelves of my study at home, even though it’s been years since I actually used most of that stuff. And lots of other books on assorted subjects besides that which are one or two decades or even more older.
NotMax
@Mai.naem.mobile
That’s quite a leap, vaulting over things such as brake failure or driver medical incapacitation.
D58826
@Mai.naem.mobile: Twitter reporting that city is on lockdown and officials suspect terrorism. Still early to make any firm assessment
FlipYrWhig
@germy: What do you think is happening, the business is storing your information to spam you later? I was under the impression that it was some sort of liquor control board policy, not a corporate one.
FlyingToaster
@germy: It depends upon the validating service they’re paying.
MA doesn’t include SSN. The bars and stores around here who use them seem to be checking for state, Driver ID and age. And probably a cheksum. A valid but stolen id will pass the scanner; a fake one is a lot less likely.
My usual liquor store doesn’t card me, but a couple of restaurants do. Even when I’m there with WarriorGirl and couldn’t conceivably be under 25, noting the apparent-10-year-old (actually 8) kid and the gray hair and the wrinkles.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: reports of shots fired at the scene, now being disputed by MSNBC by a reporter on the ground, but Chuck Todd et al treating ISIS attack as a certainty, talking about Arab/North African presence in Marseille
NotMax
@Anonimous
Ah, that Campbell. Thought you were talking about Joseph Campbell and somehow tying him to Connections as we were also lightly discussing that.
Also too, so far as SF goes, Hugo Gernsback.
Gelfling 545
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Oh, Lord. That means another hysterical Facebook post from my sister in law, after which she will be routed to some better informed sources and might calm down until the next report of yet another end of the world as we know it arrives. She is not stupid or ill educated so I guess this serves some need for her. Tiresome, though.
NotMax
@FlyingToaster
And am fond of telling the cashier, “If I were under 21 and looked like this, I’d need to drink.”
germy
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, I expect I’ll be finding more and more junk mail from them, now that they have my address. And if someone hacks into their stupid system, they’ll have my SSN.
@FlyingToaster:
There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I can walk to a convenience store and buy a six pack and I won’t get proofed (as I said, I’m almost 60). I can walk to the liquor store and buy vodka and wine, and not get proofed. But this beverage center scanned my driver’s license. If someone is obviously in late middle age, why proof them? And if I didn’t drive, and had no driver’s license, what then?
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
I think a big difference between WWII and now is that there were ways for people to do something about the war that just aren’t there in the GWOT. We built up a massive military machine, which meant enlisting something like 10% of the population. People who weren’t in the military could still contribute by working in essential wartime industries. People who didn’t do that could still donate blood, collect scrap metal, grow victory gardens, buy war bonds, etc. A lot of those things may not have been strictly beneficial for the war effort, but they gave civilians who didn’t have any other way of contributing a sense that they were doing their part for the war effort. I think it’s to Bush’s massive discredit that he worked so hard to stoke fear around the GWOT without providing a productive outlet for it.
Major Major Major Major
The phrase Mike Pence none the richer” just popped into my head.
JMG
Places serving/selling alcohol that card zealously often have had prior run-ins with alcohol control boards for serving minors.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
there’s a darkly comic aspect to the fact that MSNBC feels the need to bring in Brian Williams when it comes to “hard news”
germy
Dr. Cornel West has endorsed Jill Stein.
NotMax
@germy</a.
Personally, would never hand anything over for scanning. Cashier can punch in the birthdate on the keyboard.
If that option is not provided, my patronage goes elsewhere.
In reality, here at least, they just ask for a date of birth and accept and enter whatever date I choose to utter, so don't even have to dig out an I.D.
FlipYrWhig
@germy:
Because the alternative is relying on the clerk’s judgment, which I wouldn’t. Much more efficient to card everyone and use a machine than to train clerks what various IDs look like and how to make an educated guess about a person’s age.
Anywhere you’ve ever used a credit card, the privacy jig is up anyway, no?
Timurid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So is he telling the French that they need to bring back Napoleon yet?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Anyone watching the news out of Nice?
Betty Cracker
@germy: Fuck that whiny-ass piece of garbage, and fuck Sanders for selecting the turncoat pile of dung for the platform committee.
JPL
Wow.. 30 to 50 dead in Nice and up to a hundred injured.. The driver of the truck is dead.
FlipYrWhig
@germy: What an asswipe. Fuck that guy. Seriously, fuck the fuck out of that guy. Lawrence Summers was right about him.
Ian
Some kind of incident happened in France involcing a bus. Reports say dozens feared dead.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: If only they had put him on the Democratic platform committee twice, his delicate feelings would have been assuaged.
germy
@Betty Cracker: @FlipYrWhig: But he wears a black suit and a scarf everywhere he goes. He must be a serious person!
Major Major Major Major
As others have noted, a truck rammed a crowd in Nice, France, many feared dead. Trying not to make assumptions…
daverave
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Glad to see that CA is only getting the bare minimum… once again leading this nation by example!
NotMax
@germy
Guaranteeing himself invites to appear on the TV when the A-, B- and C-listers can’t make it.
Emma
@Ian: BBC basically says “nobody knows nuffink”. There are at least 30 dead, supposedly. All they know so far is that a lorry plowed into some Bastille Day celebrations.
germy
@NotMax: Here’s his announcement:
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@germy: Virginia used to put the SS# on its drivers license, but eventually moved beyond that (and let people request a different number before then, IIRC). I forget where you are, but if it concerns you, you might have an option to have that removed from your license. Check with your DMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Whose life story is probably on a server in China, so he doesn’t worry about it too much.)
Joel
@hellslittlestangel: tons of gulls along Lake Erie.
Miss Bianca
@germy: those two fucking deserve each other. At least we know there will be one other person at the Green Party convention!
Trollhattan
@germy:
Whoa, good thing I was sitting down when I read that. What a shocker!
Ian
@Why hello…:
Brinks trucks??? is that you?
debbie
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Guess they kicked Ohio out of the fraternity. Bad enough our licenses were pink…
NotMax
@germy
It would have been gauche not to wait until the last check from the Sanders campaign had cleared.
germy
@Betty Cracker: 8:00 tonight on ABC. President’s town hall on race relations in America. I’m sure it’ll be on youtube if you miss it in real time.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: Whatever. Paul Ryan already gave the town hall on race relations that America needs.
Trollhattan
@Emma:
From The Guardian.
Trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Best “Get a job!” speech evar.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I didn’t even know about that until it was too late and I had already bought my ticket to this evening’s Cultcha at the Cinema. Last night I saw an encore presentation of La Bohème, and tonight it’s one of the Arts & Architecture presentations, St Peter’s and the Papal Basilicas of Rome. Sounds intriguing and I’m looking forward to it, but it means I’ll miss the first 45 minutes or so of the Town Hall. Assume I can catch the whole thing later. Is someone her planning to front-page a link to a live feed?
JPL
twitter feed for metro news in france.. link I don’t read french, but it appears the new toll is 60. Maybe someone who reads french can let me know if that is correct.
Brachiator
From flora to fauna. I recently went to an afternoon showing of The Secret Life of Pets at an Arclight Theater. Lots of kiddies in the audience. Before the movie, they were restless and noisy (but not loud or disruptive). They showed a minions short before the main feature. And kids love minions. They just love ’em and have swiftly added them to the pantheon of essential kid things. A few months ago, this Arclight Theater had a display of movie props and related items that included some kid sized minion figures. And kids would sidle up and have their parents take a picture of them with a minion because that’s the way the world works. Some kids didn’t even ask or explain anything.
The short was funny, but strangely enough the punch line probably went over the heads of the younger kids who don’t yet know their numbers.
The kids loved the main feature, hereafter known as SLOP (or TSLOP). Good voice work lead off by Louis CK as the dog Max. Spoiler light discussion: The movie is like Toy Story. Max is top dog until his owner brings home a big shaggy mutt, kinda like Woody being displaced by Buzz Lightyear, The movie makers show you the world of pets without their owners, and then opens up into an adventure and chase featuring some increasingly mean animals, led by a nasty little bunny voiced by Kevin Hart.
Towards the end there is an implausible set piece involving a stolen vehicle (a Mad Max: Furry Road interlude) that also reminds you of a similar scene in “Finding Dory.” Probably a coincidence since these movies are prepped and made over a relatively stretch of time, but still leaves you with a feeling of “seen that before, don’t need to see it again.” But overall the movie is fun, charming and includes a number of very sweet scenes of the pets alone and with their owners. The movie is also a bit of a love letter to New York, where the action is set. Nicely done.
The kids actually applauded the end of the movie. No one seemed bored. So I think it is nearly 100 percent kid approved (and this is not true of all the stuff directed at them). I think the movie is good, not great, but has a lot of sweet touches. Go see it, with or without kids.
The trailers before the film were nothing special. Outside there were a number of posters for upcoming films. Most I knew about. But there was, I think, a poster for a new version of Ben-Hur, set for August. Who knew? I don’t think I’ve heard any publicity and haven’t seen any trailers.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore: and @Barbara:
The fear was channeled more clearly into anger, and that anger was pretty damn destructive. Not just the internment, stuff like the Zoot Suit Riots that hardly anyone remembers now.
EDIT – EDIT – @Brachiator:
As a writer and animation buff, I found Secret Life of Pets artistically confusing. There are so many elements that are rock stupid, and so many that are brilliantly clever. The character designs are dull, but the animation itself is vividly alive, and in many cases wonderfully true to animal body language. You’ll have predictable jokes like the cat giving a speech about how she doesn’t care running simultaneously with much smarter, better framed jokes like her sitting in a tiny box. It was definitely fun, so I can say that without ambivalence.
ThresherK
@Trollhattan: Heehee.
Like he watched Rand Paul at Howard U. and said, “Yeah, that’s how to do it.”
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: I wonder if he’s going to be on *their* Platform Committee?
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: Given his track record, they should probably leave him off it, for their sake.
Anoniminous
@germy:
Not surprising. He worked to get her on the ballot in Georgia and they have more in common than he with Hillary.
FlyingToaster
@germy: They’re not obligated to sell alcohol (or cigarettes) to you if you can’t provide proof of age. Around here, there’s a sign at the door stating that explicitly — if you do not have proof of age, we will not etc.
germy
@Brachiator:
For some reason, my local TV station has been showing Ben-Hur trailers nonstop. Morgan Freeman in dreadlocks, teaches Ben how to ride a chariot. The chariot race scene looks intense. And Jesus Christ is played by a more ethnic character, rather than the Tab Hunters who usually portray Him.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: We know you can’t, because how you draw that conclusion from that paragraph indicates your lack of an discernible reading comprehension skills.
Steve in the ATL
@cmorenc:
Satan, get thee behind me!
Yes, I was a history major. I don’t apologize for it.
Barb2
@germy: Cornell West
wasn’t this the fvcker who was chosen by Bernie to be on democratic platform committee?
I hate Bernie. Chauvinist pig.
JPL
Metro News in France is saying 60 dead. They are still labeling it a criminal attack, but it’s likely it is a terrorist attack.
Villago Delenda Est
@Why hello…: It’s funny that all these “game changers” don’t seem to really change the game. Sort of like that huge anti-Trump blitz that ¡Heb!’s superpac was supposed to be launching that failed to materialize.
debbie
@JPL:
France 24 is live-streaming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anoniminous: he accepted a place on the Democratic Party’s platform committee. He’s a spiteful old asshole.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Because of course he has.
I heard a few minutes of Jill Stein on MSNBC a little while ago, on Chuck Todd’s program. She actually stated, in words, that “Everything Donald Trump has said, Hillary Clinton has done.” I’m not sure I ever heard this woman before today. Does she say inflammatory (and obviously untrue) shit like that all the time, or was today special?
Oh, also — soon after MSNBC went to coverage of the Terror Truck in Nice, Chuckles helpfully said, “For those of you who haven’t read A Tale of Two Cities, this is Bastille Day in France. It’s their Fourth of July.” SMDH.
debbie
Watching people stream away from the scene. So many little children.
scav
@JPL: Yes, and the twitter gizmo also says No hostages taken, don’t spread rumors and also that some children are among the victims.
ETA: It’s the gendarmes saying stop with the rumors, by the by.
Trollhattan
@JPL:
AP has an eyewitness saying the driver came out from the cab shooting.
Brachiator
@germy:
To be expected. West rides a purity pony.
What’s a little more interesting is a recent NY Times political story on the early polling. In a 3 way race, Clinton, Trump, Johnson (Libertarian candidate), Johnson got 22 percent of the young 18 to 29 vote. Trump got a little less, at 21 percent, and Clinton got 47 percent. If the Libertarians maximized their pro-drug and isolationist policies, they might make some headway with the 18 to 49 crowd, and maybe create a Ross Perot like spoiler effect. But they probably won’t and neither they nor Jill Stein will be a significant factor in the presidential election.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: Nothing to say other than “Merde–quelle dommage!”
Unless you’re Omnes, of course.
Brachiator
@germy:
I don’t think that they ever showed The Christ full on in the Charlton Heston version. I admit that this is one of my favorite action adventure movies when I was a kid.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I’ll bet the Dems-going-to-Johnson bump goes away once all this Bernie nonsense fades away to nothing in a couple weeks.
Stein will be irrelevant as always.
PaulW
There are Jigglypuffs at the Walmart I swear!!!
Trollhattan
Ugh, Twitter post with pic of crowd just before truck arrived.
Steve in the ATL
@PaulW: There were [expletive deleted] Pokemon all over my Waze map when I was driving home. Someone needs to suffer for that.
Major Major Major Major
@Trollhattan: ugh ugh ugh
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
I don’t disagree with you. But none of this bothered the kids in the audience. And I don’t say this to put them down, but that they responded to the positive elements you noted, and didn’t care about the confusion. I thought the movie was inferior to Zootopia, but overall I liked this more than “Finding Dory.” Ultimately, I liked the main characters, thought the world of the baddies was interesting even if not entirely original. Definitely some rough spots, but like a lovable dog, the movie won me over with its heart.
NotMax
@Brachiator
IIRC, only the hand was shown, the scene lifted in its entirety from the silent version starring Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman.
JPL
@debbie: My antenna picks up France 24 and earlier they were showing sports with the breaking news on the feed underneath. Thanks for the info.
Major Major Major Major
“Police source” has the Nice death toll at 73.
JPL
Now the police are saying 73 morts.. This is going to sound crass, but it’s a new element in terrorism. Gather a crowd of a tens of thousands, and mow them down. ugh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: What’d I do?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: gotta be ten years ago I read an article by Richard Clarke predicting attacks like this, and like Orlando, like the Boston Marathon, in the States
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I always said, if the terrorists were really smart, they wouldn’t be going after airplanes or concerts or schools or anything like that. Just fuck up some crowds at a parade, or a marathon, or a fireworks display… much simpler and much, much scarier.
I didn’t think they’d listen.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
You speak better French than most of us, non?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I don’t know that I would go that far.
Trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Remember this guy? Lucky break catching him at the border.
Barb2
Animal Behavior and Animal cognition, Animal Thinking are my favorite subjects.
Frans de Waal studies primate behavior and he has written several books. His latest book: “Are we Smart Enough to Know how Smart Animals Are?” The title says it all!
This is my favorite book on animal cognition. He starts out by reviewing Learning Psychology and BF Skinner. The first animal in the spot light – cats. In Learning psychology – stimulus/response expansion all behavior. That is a load of crap – and most of the Behaviorist School has been demolished. Back to cats – the cat in the cage or box theory was in most Beginning Psychology books as a proof of Skinner’s dogma.
Cats are way smarter than Skinner. De Waal takes apart Skinner with the help of cats
If you love animals and just know your furkids are geniuses – well they are!
Lucky for you de Waal trained with, worked for or knew most of the researchers studying Animal Cognition. He is able to make this complex subject accessible to all.
A small brag – I had the pleasure of meeting Irene Pepperberg at an Animage Behavior conference in the 90s. Pepperberg works with African Grey Parrots, the late Alex was her first Parrot. Alex had the same accent as Pepperberg’s NYC accent. So cute. Yes, Pepperberg’s work with Alex is in de Waal’s latest book.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I would take those numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism. I forget which poll it was, but I looked at one that included more detail about the numbers. In addition to asking candidate preference, they had asked how sure people were about how they’d vote. The Clinton and Trump voters were much more confident (75-80% saying sure, 20-25% saying likely) than the minor party voters (30-40% sure, 60-70% likely). I think a lot of the people saying they’ll vote for one of the minor party candidates are saying that because they’re unhappy with the candidate from the major party they usually vote for and were saying they’d favor a minor party candidate as a protest. They’re likely to come around by election time.
Roger Moore
@PaulW:
Sorry, those are regular Walmart shoppers, though the confusion is understandable.
laura
@Emma: Kindle provides text -and good lighting so I hear.
Only books can bring sensual pleasure to the reader/possessor. The sand or smoothness of the page, the feel in the hand or hands -from rigid hardbound to pliant back of the pocketbook. The scent of the page and any additions from food, flower, smoke…. the color of the paper over time. Water rings, grease,coffee stains and tears.
Stacks of books,bookshelves or a single go every where with book.
And then there’s the text!
Emma, you’re giving up a lot with those books. Best wishes for improved health and well being.
J R in WV
When we planned travel, 17 days away, no vehicle, I knew I couldn’t carry books/dictionaries/maps/history in our luggage, so I broke down and got a Google tablet, loaded it with translator tools, maps, history, novels to read in bed in the evenings. It worked great for the whole trip.
Then I dropped it! the battery came loose inside, les mort.
I’ll get another one someday…
But, I must admit, like Emma, nothing will replace quality paper for me, really.