The trailer for the new @MrRogersMovie documentary has me in tears already ?? pic.twitter.com/CVPyx0SK5h
— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) March 20, 2018
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Even if that’s not statistically verifiable, isn’t it a better way to live?
"We're trying to save lives and we're trying to save America… it's really USA over NRA." @davidhogg111 and @JaclynCorin
on the #MarchForOurLives. We'll be marching in D.C. this weekend, go find a march near you! https://t.co/IvGbnuS1ap pic.twitter.com/kMgXVfGcNZ— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) March 20, 2018
Just talked w/ some DC teenagers preparing for Saturday's rally: they've coordinated > 300 host families for other high schoolers coming in from California, Florida, Conn and more. Organized meals for Friday and Saturday, have first-aid stations/emergency contacts. Incredible
— Astead (@AsteadWesley) March 20, 2018
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rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
rikyrah
Even when I was a kid, I thought that he was corny.
When I got grown, and read about him, I grew to love and respect him for the DECENT human being that he genuinely was.
Patricia Kayden
So very proud of these kids. They’re not playing with the NRA. Go kids!! Go Mueller!!
cosima
@rikyrah: I was never a Mr R fan when little (loved me some ZOOM, Electric Company & Sesame Street though), I think it was that weird kind of mean & ugly puppet lady — she freaked me out every time she came on. I don’t remember a lot about her, did she redeem herself at the end of all of her skits, or was she left as a not-nice character in the show? Didn’t like her. However, as you say, once you become an adult, his messages resonate. Not sure that’s how it’s supposed to work, but if he did manage to make a child or two (or more) nicer that’s a net positive.
I hope that my generation are raising children who will be the change this world needs. My girls are liberal warriors, so I’ve contributed two!
Wag
I was disappointed to hear about the gun control rallies scheduled for Saturday. I had hoped to participate, but we have plans to be in France for Spring Break. The lo and behold, found plans for a rally on Saturday in Paris! Looks like we will be participating in an international anti-NRA political movement when we attend!
C’est magnifique!
satby
My sons liked him. The other kids shows were so frenetic, but his was soothing and he talked about kid’s feelings and fears. I think we forget his show was aimed at very young children and was on before Sesame Street even existed. It was comforting and entertaining for little ones.
satby
@rikyrah: and good morning to you! ☕!
satby
NPR reporting that the suspected Austin bomber has died in a standoff with police.
satby
@satby: link here
Surveillance video shows a white guy.
Schlemazel
@satby:
Was he a terrorist or a white guy?
asked & answered – thanks
Wag
@Schlemazel:
Both
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I had a feeling using FedEx was a mistake for him.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah: Good morning.
satby
@Schlemazel: @Wag: yep. I see MaryG flagged it in the last thread at 4:30ish. Hope that it was the guy, and they figure out his motive.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: the weird thing is he went to the counter in a FedEx store. There’s unmonitored dropboxes.
Patricia Kayden
@satby: I’ve heard that he blew himself up. Coward.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: A cry for help.
cosima
@satby: There wasn’t much that could be seen of him in the photos from security cameras, the photos at the BBC link. And they did say they thought he was wearing a wig in those. I hope he was doing this alone (apart from his obvious enablers on the right, the white house squatter, fox, etc).
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Hmmmmm. A mass bomber who detonates 7 bombs is not a terrorist. What could possibly make them say that (photo)
cosima
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: She gets more & more vile with each passing day. Domestic terrorist. Shout it from the rooftops.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Yesterday’s primary in Illinois
Dem voters…1,240,444
GOP voters……681,313
Roll tide, roll.
Schlemazel
@Wag:
According to the standards of modern media is his complexion is lighter than a paper bag he is just a lone wolf with mental issues.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: No such thing as “unmonitored” these days. Even if there is no camera directly on the box, the Boston bombings showed how store cameras pick up the comings and goings along the street. Sooner or later that evidence would have come into play.
@raven: “Stop me before I bomb again!”
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
geg6
@cosima:
That would’ve been Lady Elaine Fairchild. She wasn’t really mean, just clueless in her privilege. Mr. Rogers always ended up teaching her a lesson in kindness and empathy in the end. Myself, I loved Daniel Tiger, even though I was too old for it all and only watched because my baby sister watched. I met Mr. Rogers several times and what you saw on the show was exactly who he was IRL.
satby
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: shitty turnout. There’s about 7 million people just in metropolitan Chicago. People need to get off their asses for every single election.
OzarkHillbilly
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Looks a lot younger than I was expecting but every bit as white.
raven
Mika is fucking hilarious, Joe is gone and she can’t bring herself to say vagina! “You can see it on the screen”!
JPL
@Schlemazel: When the orange asshole called him a sick person yesterday, I assumed he was white.
Magda in Black
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I look forward to the day I don’t have to see Rauners face at the top of each BJ post….
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I assume they have better footage or were able to enhance that enough to use facial recognition software. That he committed suicide by bomb seems to bolster the case that it was the bomber, and I hope he worked alone. Otherwise our cold, low level civil war may be heating up.
Cermet
As a young (26), white male amerikan, so then by definition, not a terrorist. That is also by the FBI and the media – talk about mental illness (not the bomber’s.)
satby
@Cermet: where did you get the info he was 26?
Magda in Black
@satby:
..was thinking that myself. (NW burbs here)
cosima
@geg6: I’m glad Lady Elaine learned something in each episode. If his was the show with Mr Green Jeans, then that is probably the only thing I liked about it. As a parent I love him, when a child he was not my cup of tea. Every little bit of kindness in this world helps, and it is bittersweet seeing that distilled kindness as a retrospective. Now that sort of thing is shunned and mocked, parodied, just when it is needed the most. A few years ago I bought Little C a book — ‘Do Nice Be Kind Spread Happy’ by Bernadette Russell — and I showed it to the parent of a peer of hers, one who was struggling with other girls being mean to her daughter. That parent was so scornful about the book! American claptrap touchy feely rubbish! Blah blah blah. And so I thought to myself ‘I wonder where the mean stems from….’ There is a lot of talk about bullying, its importance, how widespread, etc., and very little asking ‘where does it start?’ It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it starts at home. We preach kindness (with a side of cynicism) here at our house.
satby
@Magda in Black: I’m hoping the low turnout was tied to how many primary races were uncontested. But it should have been much higher, even if the good news is that Democratic voters outnumbered GOP ones.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I’d really like to know the motive.
satby
@cosima: Mr. Green Jeans was on Captain Kangaroo, not Mr. Rogers.
OzarkHillbilly
@cosima: Mr Green Jeans was with Captain Kangaroo.
ETA @satby: beat me by thiiis much.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: well, you and I and the rest of us can make some educated assumptions. And we probably wouldn’t be far off, but confirming what his motive was is important.
p.a.
I like the ‘It takes a good guy with a bomb to stop a bad guy with a bomb’ meme. Ridicule isn’t enough, but it is a tool in the toolbox.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Holding open primaries has been a topic of debate since the last cycle.
Those in favor say independents and republicans may eventually become democrats if they are allowed to vote in the Dem primaries.
But there is concern allowing republicans in could fuck-up a close race.
In Illinois last night a Dem primary pitted wingnut Dem Dan Lipinski against progressive Dem Marie Newman.
On the gop side, the only person running for their nomination was an actual card carrying Nazi/Holocaust denier. Because of this, many republicans decided to vote in the Dem primary for Lipiniski and it carried him to a razor thin victory, beating Newman by a mere 1,600 votes.
Welp – be careful what you wish for.
geg6
@cosima:
Mr. Greenjeans was on Captain Kangaroo. Another great, lamented children’s show that taught kids how to be good humans.
Bostonian
Mr. Rogers was an amazing individual. I wish there were more like him.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/28/mf.mrrogers.neighbor/
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Kook!
Steeplejack (phone)
@satby:
CNN story here.
cosima
@satby: Totally forgot about the Captain K! They were quite similar, and definitely blend together in my mind. It’s getting on to 50 years since I watched them, so it’s all a bit fuzzy.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Motive is really difficult. Rarely is it any one thing, rather a stew of several usually barely connected thru a maze of disconnected thoughts. Plus, it’s Texas.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Wow.
Open primaries are bad for two reasons. One is the GOP ratfucking. Two is that independents are more likely to be resentful if their candidate loses the nomination. Even same day registration puts a significant dent in those problems and are to be preferred to open primaries.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@OzarkHillbilly: with that long, white hair, he looks like a young Ric Flair
WOOOOOH!
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: That’s Levi Sanders. His dad doesn’t talk like that anymore.
cosima
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: F*ck any & all persons immediately connected to Sanders’ political sphere & aspirations. The OFC did not do a great job of connecting, just shouting and appealing to the lowest common denominators & impulses. To use that terminology is to mitigate the hatred/racism/etc., and thereby enable it. Rotten apple obviously does not fall far from the old rotten tree.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Baud:
That’s a really good point, that I haven’t heard before.
Baud
It sucks that we have to pray for all notorious killers to be white nowadays. Whatever happened to MLK’s dream?
Schlemazel
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: We have open primaries here on the tundra. You can pick either party & vote that side. Because of their top-sown style the GOP rarely has a real fight. Because the DFL is not an orginized party there are often fights & Republican voters have been known to help select the weakest candidate for us.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
It ran into a white reality that seems more bent on denying people of color any dreams of any kind.
A loss of hope often leads to anger & resentment.
cosima
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I wondered how Lipinski won. That is the suck. Now it’s also a victory for the anti-choice crowd to crow about it. In Alaska Lisa (bitch face piece of garbage) Murkowski won as a write-in when she was screwed in the open primary by RWNJ voters who wanted Joe Miller & a bit of Dem cross-over. It was a trainwreck, and she ultimately prevailed wiith the help of Dems voting against their own candidate, in a hail-mary to keep out Joe Miller. It is a very nearly identical situation, so the progressive challenger should not give up. Write-in, campaign, raise money — go for it!
debbie
@satby:
My youngest brother loved him! I remember playing Fish with him during both Mr. Rodgers and Sesame Street.
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Please. Some are nice people.
OzarkHillbilly
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: @Baud: @Schlemazel: I am no fan of open primaries but it is a 2 way street. Misery’s open primaries helped get us Todd Akin in the race against McCaskill in 2012.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
And of course Mr. Greenjeans was Frank Zappa’s father.
Original Lee
@geg6: I am impressed that you got to meet Mr. Rogers more than once! How cool!
I watched Mr. Rogers for many years, even as a grownup. I didn’t pay attention to every piece of the show, except when I was quite small. My favorite bit was always Picture Picture, although I also loved Daniel Tiger.
Chyron HR
@cosima:
YEAH THAT WORKED OUT AWESOME FOR US IN 2016!!!!!
(Pretending for the sake of argument that the guy who lost the primary was “progressive” just because he waggled his finger at billionaires.)
Kay
It doesn’t really matter that the DeVos/Trump school shooting commission is a joke- the federal government doesn’t have that much sway over public schools and DeVos doesn’t put any funding behind anything- she’ll make a big announcement that she’s “giving” like 2 million dollars to schools for some bad idea or another and there are a LOT of public schools in the US so it’s like 436 dollars per school- but it’s notable what petty assholes they are. “Commissions” usually make some attempt to appear inclusive and open to ideas. Not Team Trump. They go out of their way to exclude anyone who might know anything.
Democrats did succeed in keeping federal funding for arming teachers out of a reauthorization for a school safety program that has existed since 2011, which Republicans are pretending was a response to Parkland but is not a response to Parkland and was going to pass anyway as part of the budget so the upshot of all this talk is they reauthorized a program that has been reauthorized consistently since the 1970’s, when it first appeared as a tiny portion of a huge crime bill.
satby
@cosima: it’s a very Catholic area full of the fabled Reagan Democrats, so there’s that. And though I normally wouldn’t root for anyone that Wilmer endorsed, he endorsed Lipinski’s opponent Newman. My loathing of Lipinski had me rooting for Newman, and she gave him a tight race. I hate the fucker, but he’s at least smart enough to back off some of his conservative bullshit when he figures out it’s a losing strategy like he did with gay rights. The regular Den organization stood by him, Pelosi endorsed him, and he still came close to losing. He better improve as a team player.
Droppy
I was too old for Mr. Rogers, and those of us with younger siblings made a lot of fun of him – it was all so goody-goody and silly to us. But if you think about it being aimed at young kids and what most young kids really want and need (unconditional love and kindness) – there isn’t really anything to make fun of!
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: That sounded too good to be true. It is. Snopes:
Cheryl Rofer
Looks like the Austin bomber is dead.
Twenty-four year old white man. Huh.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I saw the Mr Rogers doc at the True/False Film festival earlier this month.
Yes, you will tear up. But in a good way.
He was a phenomenal person.
Eural Joiner
“Drunk History” just did a recent – and excellent, as usual – episode on Rogers. Basically, he created the children’s educational programing we know and love and then almost single handidly saved it from Congressional budget cuts. The entire episode focused on “Underdogs” and just hit all the feels :)
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sumbitch! That has been “fact” for decades!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Fair enough. It seems like it hurts us more, but maybe that’s wrong.
cosima
@Chyron HR: Depends on the circumstances. You-know-who was flat-out shit-stirring, beginning to end. If Lipinski is as repugnant as some say, then why not have the progressive challenger mount a write-in — however, only if in doing so there’s no chance that the R will win. I don’t know enough about that area, its demographics (satby’s explanation provides a bit of context, and would lead me to lean no to write-in), however, if it is a strong blue area, it could work, just as it worked in the reverse in Alaska, as a strong red area.
The best option/answer is no to open primaries. They suck and I hate them, there’s never a good enough reason for them, register as a Dem/Rep at least 6+ months prior, and vote in your own damned primary. Seems simple enough, even works for the new voters just turning 18.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
It used to take decades to develop the kind of hate needed to become a serial bomber. Now, in just a flash of a blinking monitor…!
Aleta
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: From your link, “Levi Sanders tells WMUR: ‘I just want to talk about issues’”
Apparently one of the issues is to keep telling people that Hillary lost because she did it wrong. Which clears B Sanders of any bit of responsibility or gullibility.
satby
@cosima: no, the progressive candidate will just split the vote if she runs as an independent. The election for that seat is over. But it gave us great leverage over Lipinski, who really wants to keep that cushy gig. For the first time, he had to worry about losing it. Let’s see if he gets a clue, otherwise we go at him again next election.
Edit: and remember, his R opponent is an actual Nazi. Lipinski is a jerk, but he’s not a Nazi.
Baud
@satby: Makes sense. The next election will be in a presidential year. I don’t know exactly which way that cuts, but hopefully it cuts against Lipinski.
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: And the police work is almost as fast. Or this guy wasn’t as good as the Unabomber.
cosima
@satby: Crossing fingers. Hopefully Nancy Smash’s endorsement came with the proviso that if he tries throwing in a spanner he’s out in the cold.
Waldo
The Davies cartoon is perfect. Wayne LaPierre should be sweating bullets.
Cermet
@satby: The Washington Post, or Huffingtonpost
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: It started because he wrote a song called “Son of Mister Green Genes“.
@Baud: It may very well hurt us more, really couldn’t say. I hardly ever cross over but I think I did in 2012 just because it so rarely matters who the DEMs put up out here and the only 2 races where it did matter in 2012 was Obama and McCaskill and they were both unopposed. This year the GOP have the fix in as to who will run against McCaskill (Josh Hawley) so she and we have no opportunity to rat fuck them again.
James E Powell
@satby:
He will never get any better. He views that district as his family’s hereditary duchy. Everyone who disagrees with him is wrong and winning, even by a handful of votes, proves him right.
Kay
I really loved Mr. Rogers when my kids were small. I sometimes think it was more beneficial to me than to them. It’s exhausting caring for little kids- it’s like you’re monitoring their emotional weather all day long.
He had this kind of elegance in the way he thinks. It’s simple but it makes so much sense and it’s always kind. He once told this story about how he told his mother he wanted to marry her- this is not that unusual a thing for little kids to say- and his mother told him he couldn’t because “I’m already married” – simple but perfect and she didn’t humiliate him or make him feel bad.
satby
@Baud: if we can get a candidate the regular Dems would abandon Lipinski for, he’s out. The only thing that saved him this time was them. I get that they have to do the loyalty thing, and Newman never held office, so she’s unknown in that sense. But it would be great if the party told Lipinski that it was time to leave before he lost.
OzarkHillbilly
Sister Jean: how a 98-year-old nun became the hottest property in basketball Picture, gotta love it.
Baud
@satby: Hopefully, any Dem can win that district in the general election in 2020, or else Lipinski will be the least of our worries.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: My mom was a school psychologist and kept pointing out how his little monologues about emotions were informed by psychoanalytic theory, etc. There was probably a bit of Freud in that one.
satby
@James E Powell: no one hates him more than I do, but he moderated on gay rights. He won’t moderate on choice, ever, but in other issues he’s potentially able to be pushed. Before, threats to run a primary challenger were pretty empty, so he didn’t have to pay attention to them. This time it came close. Even if he moderates, he’ll always be a blue dog, and I will work against him in every election until one of us isn’t around any more.
Lapassionara
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for clearing that up. I was scratching my head, but did not think to look at Snopes.
Re, Mr. Rogers, for some reason, our family latched onto the phrase, “correct as usual, King Friday.” We must have seen lots of episodes.
Good morning, everyone. Has snowmageddon started?
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
There had to be cameras all over the FedEx facility
Gin & Tonic
@Eural Joiner: That framing – “created” – does a real disservice to Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo.
Ohio Mom
One thing Mr. Rogers did that never gets the attention it deserves is to periodically visit factories.
As I remember, they tended to be places that made things of interest to kids, like baseball bats and tricycles. The workers explained their specific tasks to Mr. R and of course he asked all sorts of questions.
It gave children a glimpse of the adult world, showing them what some dads and moms did when they were gone all day.
More significantly I think, these visits elevated blue collar work in a way that very few places on TV did back then. People who worked with their hands were presented as important to all of us.
Now maybe in this day of Trump and his idealized male blue collar constituency, this seems besides the point. But it was a different world, and presenting working people with dignity was something of a novelty. I think it admirable that Mr. Rogers modeled respect for all social classes.
Matt McIrvin
@Gin & Tonic: Rogers, Keeshan, and Ernie “Mr. Dressup” Coombs (often described as Fred Rogers’ Canadian counterpart) all seem to have been friends and exchanged ideas. And to some extent they were building on shows like Romper Room and Ding Dong School, though they changed the emphasis a bit.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I think he knew that he really had two audiences- little kids and the adults who care for little kids. It’s hard to stay generous and attentive and kind all day long caring for little kids. IMO it was as much about reminding parents to be decent as it was about teaching children to be decent. You would watch and resolve to be just…better! :)
He had high hopes for us. Set a high bar.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Rat fucked on Hot Rats!
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Not among us Zappa fans.
Princess
Looks like Lipinski is going to hang on in IL03.
Although Bernie endorsed his opponent, and won the district in 2016 54% to Hillary’s 45%, my guess is more of his voters went to Lipinski and her voters went to Newman. Lipinski won Cook County, while Newman won the suburbs. Bernie’s pro-union, pro-white guy working stiff, indifferent to abortion rights stance matches Lipinski’s voters better than Newman’s. The progressives aren’t always who they claim to be.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
I vividly remember the crayon factory. He had a whole slew of workers too- crossing guards and mailmen- all kinds of people.
rikyrah
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Outside of the Lapinski race, can’t say that I am that disappointed. I didn’t think that his challenger would get that close.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I always thought of Rogers as not playing to the adults in the room to the same degree as, say, Sesame Street or even Captain Kangaroo did. But I suppose it was more that he wasn’t making a lot of winking jokey asides to them.
Though there were sometimes surreal, deadpan little jokes buried in the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” segments–for instance, X the Owl was getting his education from Owl Correspondence School (OCS), whose anthem had the tune of “Anchors Aweigh.”
rikyrah
I didn’t vote for the winner in the Governor’s primary,but I know that the goal is to rid ourselves of Rauner. Period
El Caganer
@Gin & Tonic: I’m such an old that I remember when Bob Keeshan was Clarabell on Howdy Doody.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
At 24, his prefrontal cortex still wasn’t fully developed.
bystander
I’m so old, I’m too old for Captain Kangaroo, so Mister Rogers was much later. Miss Frances of DingDong School fame and Fran Allison of Kukla, Fran and Ollie were my Rogers.
Immanentize
@Kay:
I can’t help but add the great Mr. Rodgers send up with Bill Murray
Mr. Rodgers interviews a bass player
And for the record, I was more a Captain Kangaroo boy. I loved Mr. Rabbit.
satby
@Princess: exactly.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Wait, you’ve always known that was bogus?
rikyrah
@Baud:
Illinois has Election Day Registration
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Sesame Street could seem preachy, though. You’d detect too heavy a hand in the adult department. Back off! We’ll get it!
satby
@debbie: at 1/4 that age he still already knew killing people is wrong.
Baud
@rikyrah: So it’s not open?
Steeplejack
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Note: That’s Levi Sanders, not Bernie. People probably assume the latter when seeing the surname alone.
Kay
@Immanentize:
He was a great interviewer because he was genuinely interested. “Tell me about the crayon factory”. People would go on and on. They probably went to work the next day “this is a GREAT godammned thing I’m doing- making these crayons. Vital”
rikyrah
@Kay:
Did you see the video of Rep. Barbara Lee grilling DeVos about institutional racism and school discipline policies?
MomSense
I listened to the Pod Save America interview and they were talking about how they are studying other movements. They said that when they visited Chicago to meet students there, those students taught them MLK’s Peace Principles and that is so important to them now. It is a moving interview.
I’m in Florida and the news profiled the organizers here. They have a march planned that will include voter registration.
I tear up when I think of how we have let these kids live in daily fear. I’m so grateful they are going to stop this deadly mess.
satby
@Baud: you have to declare a party to get a ballot, but you can switch that election day from your previous declared party.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Economic anxiety though.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: 2000s-era Sesame Street leans way too heavily on elaborate pop-culture parodies of things that aren’t even appropriate for children, like “Game of Thrones”–sometimes it’s as if they don’t even regard the kids as the primary audience.
Watching the 1970s material now, I admire how hard and how blatantly they were pushing racial integration in their casting choices. It must have really pissed off people in certain quarters.
raven
@Matt McIrvin: Just like Rocky and Bullwinkle!
rikyrah
@Baud:
It is open, but we got Election Day Registration a couple of years ago.
It took a couple of tries, but,for the November election, automatic voter registration will be in place. You go in and get a Drivers license or State ID and you will automatically be registered.
When you register, you don’t have to declare a party.
Steve in the DFW
Wireless service question: at&t is asking it’s customers in Georgia to lobby in favor of a bill (SB 426, for the wonks) allowing alleged enhancements called “small cells”.
Naturally, I’m suspicious of anything that shitty company does. Does anyone know whether is a good thing or a bad thing?
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Yes.
Steve in the DFW
@Matt McIrvin:
How cool was Gordon back then? That had to impress some white folks!
Hellbastard
I’ll be at the March for Our Lives rally in Moscow, ID this Saturday. Will this blog be posting pictures from such events around the country?
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: Anyway, there was a song on Uncle Meat called “Mr. Green Genes.” Some of that melody resurfaced a couple of years later in the instrumental “Son of Mr. Green Genes.” The “son of” trope came up occasionally, i.e. see “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet.”
satby
@rikyrah: better explanation, thanks!
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Of course you are going to focus on defeating Rauner because you’re a pro at being a good citizen.
Kay
Getting ugly on the R side. This is good for Democrats- Mary Taylor is crazily dog-whistling and DeWine took the bait.
They’re both slackers. Taylor hasn’t done anything of note for a decade and DeWine is a terribly ineffective attorney general. The split she’s exploiting here is Trumpsters v non-Trumpsters in the GOP, so it might be an interesting test case. The split is real- the question is if the weak non-Trumpsters find a spine.
satby
In spite of 3 mugs of coffee, I’m starting to doze off. My Fitbit informs me I only slept 4 1/2 hours instead of the slightly over 5 I thought I had, so I think I’ll head back to bed for an hour.
Steeplejack
@Lapassionara:
Report from one corner of NoVA:
When I went to bed last night, about 2:30, not much was happening. It wasn’t snowing, and there was only a slight coating on the grass and cars, not on the street. I was up again at 6:30 to feed the crepuscular apex predator housecat, and there was not much more snow on the cars.
Just in the last hour it has ramped up. The snow’s coming down hard now, and it is sticking on the street. TV weather said the peak here will be about noon, 3-5" total expected. Current temp 33°. Housecat snoozing at her workstation, heating pad set to 2 (“low simmer”). All is well.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: Yes! Exactly! Why shouldn’t those crayon factory workers be proud? The idea that some of us — the bosses — are more important than everyone else is pernicious. Mr. Rogers was quite the revolutionary in his own quiet way.
PAM Dirac
@Steeplejack: In Frederick, MD it was much worse than I expected yesterday. I think we ended up with about 8 inches. It didn’t seem to let up until about 8 pm. When I got up at 6 this morning I was a bit surprised that almost nothing was coming down, but by 7 it was coming down pretty hard and now it is even worse. In my robe, sipping tea, and VPN’d into work, so no need to venture out.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Is DeWine the Trumper?
Frankensteinbeck
Interesting. I respect Mr Rogers as a man, but I don’t like his show and don’t approve of it. This is an issue of importance to me as an author for tweens. Mr Rogers’ show was dumbed down, in subject matter, in tone, and in delivery. Most children want and need to be intellectually challenged. They appreciate it.
By and large, their parents think they need the opposite. What I run into in person is that when I sell books in person, if a parent comes by with her little girl, they buy my fluffy fun Supervillain books. When tween girls get to look at my books themselves, they gravitate immediately to Wild Children, the very serious book about moral judgment, curses, slavery, abuse, prejudice, and the difficulty of knowing the truth. And on the few times I get to hear how they liked it, it’s the ‘I read it in one day’ book.
What I’m hearing over and over in this thread is adults loving Mr Rogers’ show, and kids being much less interested.
laura
I was too old for Mr. Rogers and his show was mostly off my radar. Then the 80’s happened and the loveboat’s cruise director Julie (Lauren Twees) developed a monster coke habit, as one did back in the day. In an interview-possibly Rolling Stone magazine, she claimed that at her lowest, up for days, day after, sick and self loathing she stumbled on an episode of Mr. Rogers and just watched. His kind words of self acceptance gave her the strength to seek treatment for her addiction.
Being young and stupid, I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. I, of course, was wrong. If Mr
Rogers Neighborhood was on, id watch a bit. To make a boring story long, I feel in love with Mr. Rogers, or more accurately, I came to understand the concept of kindness in thought and deed. PBS just aired the Fred Rogers profile and man, the tears just flowed.
maurinsky
I only watched Mr. Rogers for the Land of Make Believe, but I realized as an adult how much of his positive message I had absorbed. I cannot watch even two minutes of Mr. Rogers without crying. For a kid who grew up in a chaotic, abusive household, that calm, steady, reassuring, loving and accepting voice made a huge difference.
The Electric Company was my favorite, though! That show taught me when to use apostrophe S, which is a lesson that clearly was not learned by many people in the U.S.
Kay
DeWine has name recognition which is huge in Ohio-maybe huge everywhere- they know his name so lazy voters will pick it just because of that in the general.
But inside the GOP he has a really hard job. He has to keep the Kasich suburbanites who are uncomfortable with how nasty Trump is and he has to get Trump voters, many of whom were “sporadic” voters. I haven’t seen anything from pro political media on how Trump people are sporadic voters, but they are here. They’re marginal in the sense that many of them were non-voters before they really found a soul mate in the mean-spirited and nasty Donald Trump.
That was a problem for Obama in midterm years. Young voters are unreliable. We’ll have to see if Trump voters are unreliable too. The real Trump fanatics are fringey here- they’re not people who take part in the community – I think that’s part of why they were so alienated and angry. It’s not that they don’t have money – it’s that they don’t have a kind of relationship wealth. They’re alienated and feel put upon and left out.
germy
@maurinsky: I loved Rita Moreno’s impression of Diana Ross on the Electric Company.
kindness
Re: How Cambridge Analytica got Bernie followers to echo anti Hillary Russian propaganda….Well, the BernieBros out there who were loudest about burning the whole thing down rather than support the Democratic winner, or even admit she won (some still act like it was a stolen thing) doesn’t surprise me they were hoodwinked. What surprises me is that they consider themselves to be actual Democrats. Those people didn’t lose the election for Hillary but they sure helped.
Ohio Mom
@Frankensteinbeck: Mr. Rogers was aiming at the toddler and preschool set. Who are very different than tweens.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
I adore toddlers. We had one yesterday in the office who had a melt-down and I just loved how she restored her own dignity after falling on the floor screaming. She got up, smoothed her tiny jeans, and said “I can walk by myself”. She was mad that they were dragging her around. You and I couldn’t recover from that so smoothly! If we fell to the floor screaming it would take us weeks to recover :)
Sab
OhioMom
Saw your thursday thread. Everyone on the thread was hugely helpful ( esp Aleta) Step daughter made choices she meant to make but very helpful that same as you guys advised. Monster is not teaching her . Plus she got her tuition back.
I am still disturbed that this pogram is in place and highly regarded.
Autistickids need swimmingl
lessons. They do not need incompetent monsters torturer their kids whi,e pretending to he,p them.
Steeplejack
@PAM Dirac:
I’m not going anywhere either. Loaded up on groceries and cat food yesterday, so we’re in the bunker. Only minor concern is a possible power outage, which the TV weather ghouls are gleefully warning about because of the weight of the wet snow.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ohio Mom:
I’ve raised both. Well, all three. The biggest difference is what lessons are the ones they’re reaching to learn. Again, note the overwhelming majority of stories in this thread. As a child, they liked the intense, teaching shows. As an adult, they find Mr Rogers soothing.
No Drought No More
Mr. Rogers was OK, no doubt about it.
But Captain Kangaroo was a giant..
TerryC
@El Caganer: “I’m such an old that I remember when Bob Keeshan was Clarabell on Howdy Doody.”
I am so old that my brother and I performed as acrobats on one of the very early Howdy Doody TV shows.
O. Felix Culpa
@Frankensteinbeck: My young adult sons and I beg to differ. As Kay (?) and others have pointed out, his audience was young children. The show was respectful of their emotions and their curiosity about the world; not dumbed down at all. In fact, it expanded their horizons much more than most shows – with segments for example on the cello (guest appearances by Yo Yo Ma!) that segued into how the instrument is made and others featuring children with significant disabilities, again, with grace and respect. My kids loved him when they were young and wept when he died. They were in college at the time. Tweens are a different category and in a different developmental stage. Both Mr. Rogers and what you produce have value and can coexist. Mr. Rogers would have understood that. I hope that in time you do too.
Edited.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: No, the show was aimed at preschool-age kids, maybe ages 2 through 5. Anyone old enough to be in school tended to think it was dopey and for babies, until they could appreciate the sophistication of it on an adult level. But they weren’t the target audience.
I loved that show when I was in its target age group, and my little sister did too (along with Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, etc., which had a more hip and knowing ambiance).
bemused
@Kay:
They’re natural actors. Always cracks me up how they can recover from a meltdown in an instant.
Barbara
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Regarding open primaries and the outcome of the Lipinski/Newman race: The way the open primary works in Virginia, you get to request one ballot — R or D — so you participate in all of the primaries in one or the other. Yesterday, there was a primary for congressional elections as well as for governor of Illinois, and both parties had serious competition for the nomination. If Republican voters crossed over to vote for Lipinski, then they must have decided they would rather vote in the Democratic House primary than in the one for the Republican governor. Do you really think that happened? All the polling prior to the election showed a tight race between Lipinski and Newman, but never with Newman actually ahead (although this kind of polling likely has a higher than average margin of error). ISTM that the Republican primary race for governor should have prevented or at least mitigated the kind of crossover you are talking about.
zhena gogolia
@cosima:
Mister Green Jeans was on Captain Kangaroo!
japa21
A couple comments on the Illinois election yesterday. My brain is finally starting to function after a long day as an election judge yesterday.
Illinois does not require any party affiliation when one registers, so it would be difficult to have anything other than an open primary. In fact, not only doesn’t it require it, there is no mechanism to even record party affiliation. A person does not declare their party preference when they vote, they state which party’s ballot they want to vote on. May seem minor, but it is an important difference.
I don’t know how many Republicans switched and voted in the Democratic Primary to vote for Lipinski. There was also a very important race for the GOP nomination for Governor which drew a lot of attention. In my precinct, in the NW suburbs, Rauner won by one vote.
Between early voters and election day voters, turnout in my precinct was 28%, about normal for a primary.
NotMax
One of the claims to fame of the summer camp where I worked was that Fred Rogers had been a camper there when he was a child (sometime in the 30s, IIRC). The owners who founded the camp in 1920 were Quaker. They still spent every summer there (as directors emeritus) after selling it during the 60s all the way through until they died sometime in the 1990s.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@cosima: I loved Captain Kangaroo! I loved everything about that show as a little kid. Years before “Reading Rainbow” (which we also loved for our kids), the Captain was reading books on the air and doing the Ken Burns camera-pan thing to give a little motion to the still images. Every book he read on air I fell in love with.
When Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, the entire concept of public TV came out, I was 12-13. I loved Sesame Street and Electric Company but Mr. R grated on me, as he did for many others. I didn’t see too many, not even over the shoulder of my baby sister (the way I watched Sesame Street) and I had no idea about the lessons he was teaching. I learned a lot about him and his show from the PBS special hosted by Michael Keaton that I’d never known. There was also a book a few years ago by a reporter who had a years-long correspondence with Rogers. I forget the details, but it was pretty amazing the true love and wisdom of the guy.
I knew our granddaughter was a fan of an animated character called Daniel Tiger but it was only in seeing the Keaton show that I remembered the puppet by that name on Mr. Rogers show. We talked about Daniel Tiger with some of the parents at our granddaughter’s recent birthday party, and learned that it’s a direct descendent of Mr. Rogers show, down to the shoes and sweater routine. And there’s a trolley that goes from Make Believe Land, where the animals talk, to the Real World, where you meet humans. In other words, it’s the same universe Mr. Rogers lived in, just at a different trolley stop.
Ohio Mom
@Sab: Thanks for letting me know you saw my comments and that you got your money back. Sounds as good an ending as you could have, under the circumstances.
I would like to tell you it gets better but you never know where the next land mine is going to be. Finding just the right (fill in the blank) for a kid on the spectrum is a challenge. Even when the professional in question is not a sadist like this swimming teacher, you have to find the right fit. And what the right fit is can change with time.
A friend of mine is fond of asking potential interventionalists, “Did you ever have a student/client like my son before?”
Does that work? I don’t know. People have a tendency to discount invisible disabilities, to not take them seriously, to attribute them to bad attitudes. Um, no.
I’ve pulled my kid out of programs abruptly, brought in mediators for two huge fights with our school (7th and 12th grades), fired therapists and doctors. You make choices on limited information, and sometimes you find out it was the wrong choice.
Still, my son has had many more wonderful teachers and intervention specialists than not, people who have made a tremendous difference and have propelled him forward, people to whom I remain forever grateful. You just have to keep at it.
My advice is always, find other autism parents to be your allies. We all want friends with slightly older children who have already carved out a path; sometimes we have to take our turn and be the older parent. It is not easy but it is doable.
sheila in nc
I was a toddler in about 1956-58 so I don’t think I watched much television. Not sure we had one.
But I was blessed, later on in childhood, with MUCH younger siblings. I did a lot of babysitting of my young brothers. We saw some Mr. Rogers and smiled at it, but Sesame Street, which was just starting up then, was fully enjoyed by all the children of the family (in 1972, ages 2, 5, 11, 16, and 17). Even now, we can all sing “It’s A Lovely Eleven Morning” or “She’s A Real Martian Beauty, My Number Nine Cutie” or “I’ve Got Five People In My Family” and remember all the words.
Barbara
@japa21: That’s how it works here too. There is no official party registration, hence, no real way to prevent people from voting in whichever primary is most important to them. You cannot, however, vote in both, so if you do have to make a choice.
Sab
@Ohio Mom: Thank you. Love you, zSo grateful we have younin nour lane when li fe can be so hard.
My stepdaughter is amazing. If I had to go through the world autistic I would absolutely want her to have my back.
japa21
@Barbara: And I agree with you, the GOP governor race probably kept most GOPers from choosing a Dem ballot. Rauner is dead meat now. He barely squeaked by, a lot of his opponent’s supporters won’t vote for him, plus, by trying to attract her supporters by vetoing a fairly basic gun control bill, he killed his chance among moderate independents.
Grover Gardner
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m really looking forward to that big TALENT SHOW that’s going to be so special they had to reserve the ENTIRE MALL and bump the marchers to Pennsylvania Ave. ;-/
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I was a Captain Kangaroo kid too. The best thing was to be sick, but not too sick, and get to stay in bed and watch the Captain. He was not as moralistic as Mr. R, which suited me just fine. He had a lovely soothing voice, but not saccharine. We’ve been enjoying the recent celebrations of Mister Rogers, and I’ve come to appreciate him more, but let’s not forget Bob Keeshan!
satby
@Frankensteinbeck: my kids often got a bit too wound up for the intense teaching shows when they were very small. In fact the oldest would check out with a nap if anything overwhelmed him, and he did that until he was almost 4. Mr. Rogers was a good speed for them and yes, taught them important lessons. They handled the more frenetic shows better after the ages of four or five.
Doug R
@satby:
I worked for another overnight courier for 22 years. Hated doing the dropbox pickup. People never prepped their packages right and the route I did with the dropbox was during a time when kids were blowing up postal boxes.
maurinsky
@sheila in nc:
It’s 11 o’clock in the morning, I heard 11 ???? snoring,
I saw 11 cows sitting mid the buttercups, I asked “how’s the cottage cheese?” and they said “all dried up”
maurinsky
Captain Kangaroo gave me the heebie jeebies. I never liked that show.
Shana
@debbie: Snopes says that’s false.
Shana
@Steve in the DFW: Not sure if it’s the same thing, but there was an article in the WaPo yesterday I think about using them for 5G service and the concerns about them. Don’t remember all the details but you should be able to see it online.
Matt McIrvin
@sheila in nc: The guy who made those number cartoons like “Lovely Eleven Morning” and “Real Martian Cutie” and “The Ladybug’s Picnic” and “The Alligator King” was animator/singer/songwriter/voice actor Bud Luckey, who just passed away a few weeks ago. He wrote all the songs and (mostly) perfomed them himself. He spent his later career working for Disney/Pixar–he was the voice of Rick Dicker in “The Incredibles”, and Eeyore in the last Winnie-the-Pooh feature.
My favorite of his Sesame Street animations was “That’s About The Size Of It”, which was sort of a musical “Powers of Ten”–it starts with a sunrise over a mountain that turns out to be a tiny crumb picked up by an ant, then zooms out to show a beetle towering over the ant, then larger animals, children walking a dog, a zoo, a city, the whole world and the solar system. A cosmic perspective set to a jaunty song about how “the big becomes the little when you back up just a bit”.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: When Viking 1 landed on Mars on July 20, 1976, I remember my sister was irritated that they broke into Captain Kangaroo–she watched it religiously.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Matt McIrvin:
Sesame Street, “That’s About the Size of It.”
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Should you roam through here again, Taylor has declared herself to be aligned with Trump. DeWine hasn’t, but he’s recently become ultra-Conservative (timed with the governor’s race, of course). For instance, he took to denouncing Planned Parenthood and in a moment of stupidity, declared they “steam cooked babies” (they in fact disposed of the bio-waste in compliance with law).
I think DeWine is trying to attract both ends of the Ohio GOP spectrum. I say, let him. He’s a laughable little gnome. You could probably fit both him and Sessions in a coat pocket.
Raoul Paste
All of the items in this post go together, under ‘hope for the future’
Well done.