tempted to buy this because it is funny to me pic.twitter.com/v7HcDTPkxz
— Starfish Who Just Wants To Grill (@IRHotTakes) October 17, 2021
Advent calendars are marketing ploys by definition, but this is one of the odder appropriations I’ve ever seen. Or does Warhammer 40000 include some kind of in-game 12/25 religious holiday I don’t know about?
Unrelated, except it’s from the same tweeter:
"Who are you?"
"I am the ship captain."
"You're telling me a black man is the ship captain?"
"Me? Black?! Are you saying a black man could steal a ship of the Confederate States Navy? Sounds like DAMN YANKEE TALK to me."
— Starfish Who Just Wants To Grill (@IRHotTakes) October 18, 2021
Amazing how much people are capable of not seeing, in context…
germy
germy
Betty
There are so many great stories that ought to be told. This is one.
JPL
@germy: Fortunately views change over time. You must remember when Obama was against marriage for gays. Although you are correct, over time views change.
This is Powell’s republican son In 2013, Powell was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case
JML
I’m doing the Q-workshop dice advent calendar with some gaming buddies but the Warhammer 40K Chibi image made me LOL. Whether it’s real or not.
prostratedragon
I’d love to see a Robert Smalls movie, so much that I would write it if I could. Great part for someone like Forrest Whitaker.
Baud
I want to steal a ship now.
JPL
@JML: Grand Imp is terrified of the Claus guy so I was looking for one that would make him excited about the big day. You gave me some ideas. thanks
cursorial
I grew up near Beaufort, SC, knew kids who went to Robert Smalls Elementary School, and had no idea of this history until stumbling across an episode of The Memory Palace podcast last year. “History” as taught in the former Confederacy <sigh>.
It would make an incredible movie, based on the story in the podcast.
ruff the dog
@prostratedragon: very much agree. Better than my first impression, which was “that guy looks like Keenan Thompson.” That could be a franchise to rival Austin Powers.
PAM Dirac
@Baud: I would think you would need more than one to coordinate the massive flotillas for Baud2024!
Chetan Murthy
@prostratedragon: OTOH, a hero like that (I read about him some years ago, and yeah, What. A. Hero.) you just know they’re gonna be lookin’ up Denzel Washington’s ph#. Or maybe Michael B. Jordan (these days). Gonna take a heroic-looking actor to do justice to the role, these days.
Baud
@PAM Dirac:
I was actually thinking of doing something with dirigibles.
JML
@JPL:
there are all kinds of them out there now; a buddy did a lego one with his kid. I’m a big dice dork, so this one will be fun. Hope you find the right one for the Grand Imp!
gwangung
@Chetan Murthy: I say yes to either (but, seriously, TONS of black actors in Hollywood could do this justice).
@prostratedragon: Well, I was jonesing for a story about Ching Sheh, the Chinese pirate queen, and had to do it myself, so….
Chetan Murthy
@gwangung: Sure, I was just reaching for the top of my grab-bag of “too beautiful and manly”. Though, I guess there’s too too beautiful and manly — I don’t think Idris Elba could pull it off, only b/c …. well, too too beautiful and manly.
Alex in FL
The Robert Smalls story would make a GREAT Amazon or Netflix Mini-Series. (more people would see it). He not only slipped away with an armed Confederate Navy Warship, he also took his family and other slaves away to freedom in the process.
Chetan Murthy
@Alex in FL: And then fought that ship on our side for the rest of the war. Heroic AF.
PAM Dirac
@Baud: How about dirigiberbils?
Auntie Anne
This would be a movie or miniseries I would ❤️ to watch!
Starfish
Should the Sanders and Manchin bromance be a movie?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Marjorie Taylor Greene called a “Communist” by Qanon
This is too good!
Salty Sam
Two years ago, as we were working our boat south, we spent a few days in Charleston SC. One of my favorite discoveries was a street plaque giving a brief history of “Capt” Robert Smalls and his escapade. I’ll echo the tweet above and say I’d watch the HELL out of that story made into a movie.
That story relieved a sense of dread I was experiencing- Charlestown is a beautiful place, but I could not shake the feeling of ghosts of slaves on whose backs such beauty was accomplished. The ghost of Robert Smalls made it a bit easier to take…
The Moar You Know
Robert Smalls was a fucking badass from start to finish. The Wiki article on that man ought to be required reading for kids as an example of “winning at life”.
prostratedragon
@Chetan Murthy: Actually, if those drunk history photos of a young man are really Smalls, someone like MB Jordan would be a good bit of casting for the young scenes. Does happen occasionally; Denzel was not vastly more handsome than Malcom X.
prostratedragon
@gwangung: Wow, I think I’d heard a little something about her before. Seems she was the basis of a character in one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Is your movie where one can see it?
Geminid
I read about Robert Smalls in (I believe) a Navy Times article. Smalls was an expert pilot who knew the coastal waters around Charleston, South Carolina better than any white Rebel or Yankee. On one night mission, his U.S. Navy ship was spotted in Charleston harbor by Confederate gunners at Fort Sumter. They opened fire, and the white officer who was nominally in charge wanted to surrender. “We’ll be killed if we don’t!” he cried. Smalls told him to shut up, that if they surrendered Smalls would face worse than just being killed. His Black crew backed Smalls up and they sailed clear.
prostratedragon
Note: Did we all miss Talk LIke a PIrate Day around here? It was Sept. 22.
Chetan Murthy
@prostratedragon:
From the pics of seen of Malcolm, this is truth.
Chetan Murthy
@prostratedragon: Newtonmas is comin’, Newtonmas is comin’
Ken
HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS: Hmm, yes, but marketability… Could we get Downey? Or Bale?
gwangung
@prostratedragon: I don’t think the movie did her justice; she clawed her way up from prostitute to leading a pirate fleet that was the largest in history (and she was under 30-35 at the time).
It’s more a stage play that’s entering pre-production, but I’ll make it available for video on demand when we produce.
gwangung
@Ken: This….is not an exaggeration.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
Wow, this makes Robert Smalls sound like even more of a total badass. Guy knew he had nothing to lose; he’d have rather have died than return to slavery. He probably would’ve been killed if they’d surrendered too
Rich2506
As far as Robert Smalls is concerned, I’m still convinced that Django, Unchained
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_19
was intended to be the first chapter of a serial.
Mary G
I think the Advent Calendar is a marketing ploy. A card stapled to a plastic bag containing a jumble of small crappy figurines and hanging on the shop wall with all the other plastic bags of crappy figurines is only going to bring a few bucks. They probably weren’t moving well, so hey! Let’s take a box, cut 24 little doors in it, put it in another box and charge four times more!
raven
@prostratedragon: Ghost Dawg!
kmeyerthelurker
Smalls was later elected to congress, where IIRC he got caught up in a fair amount of graft. Maybe end the series with his election.
Chetan Murthy
@Ken: Or, y’now, Idris [sploosh]
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Smalls would have been tortured and probably mutilated before he was killed.
Chetan Murthy
@kmeyerthelurker: from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls#Family
The monument to Smalls in this churchyard is inscribed with a statement he made to the South Carolina legislature in 1895: “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”[36][37]
NotMax
FYI. On a scale rating gross, obnoxious predictability on a scale of 1-10 this scores about a 14.
Geminid
@Geminid: The Navy Times article on Robert Smalls was published February 12, 2019 and is titled, “Meet the Unstoppable Mr. Smalls.” Besides Smalls’ Civil War exploits, the article covers Smalls’ life before and after, including his service as U.S. Congressman from South Carolina.
prostratedragon
@gwangung: I’ll be looking forward!
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Flight to quality on his part, eh?
Mike in Pasadena
Robert Smalls life would make a great novel and movie. Too bad we have not heard of him 40 years ago. Inspiring.
AxelFoley
@JPL: Obama wasn’t against gay marriage. He didn’t let Republicans use it as a wedge issue in 2008. You think all of a sudden he changed his opinion on it, or Joe Biden helped change his mind, when he had been quoted as being for it before he was a U.S. Senator?
Mike in NC
@NotMax: Was Sydney Powell not available?
Kelly
Greta Thunberg’s latest :-)
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1450178114890391558
Ken
@Chetan Murthy:
HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER: Hmm, interesting, but we already have Bale signed in the lead role of the noble white Confederate sailor who rescues Smalls. We can’t afford Elba for the smaller supporting role of Smalls.
Another Scott
It’s a day ending in “y” so the RedSox get another grand slam in a playoff game.
6:0 in the bottom of the 2nd.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@prostratedragon:
I missed it! AAARRGGHHH!!!
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Some of us were otherwise engaged inspecting our booty.
;)
gwangung
@Ken: Also not an exaggeration. A movie on Bruce Lee’s early days as a martial artist starred a white man who was one of his students.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
:-)
Feathers
I went to TC Williams the school from Remember the Titans. Much amusement when we learned there was going to be a movie and Denzel would be playing him. Not a bad looking man, but no Denzel.
Fond memories. I had him for behind the wheel in drivers ed. He made us do backwards figure eights through traffic cones. So, yes, the kind of teacher they make movies about.
Ken
@gwangung: I was thinking of The Blind Side, but I’m sure we could come up with a long list of “white savior” films. In fact… yes, wikipedia has a page for that.
Feathers
Just to note. Lost that comment due to page reloading on my iPhone using Safari. Will post to request for comment thread next time I am on my laptop. They
NotMax
Wondering if perhaps a front pager would consider worthy of posting this (25 minute) video during a slower (weekend?) time as a springboard for discussion?
At an off the cuff estimate would say about 80% of what he’s trying to convey provides some chewable food for thought from a sociological perspective. Whether (and to what extent) that correlates in a straight line to ineluctable behavioral and/or psychological alteration is, shall we say, a passel more fuzzy. IMHO the (for want of a better term) old ways aren’t necessarily subsumed or rendered extinct by experiencing the new, they are incorporated according to an expanded hierarchy of utility within the boundaries of the framework we’ve been dealt as a species.
The underlying thesis (clickbait title nothwithstanding) is hardly devoid of merit, though its explication is sprinkled with layers of assumption of widely varying certitude, and approaches many of those from an emotional rather than a more clinical or academic standpoint.
Anotherlurker
OT. I got the first dose of Shingles vaccine today.
Injection site aches along with the whole body . Fatigue. Chills.
Still a fuck of a lot better than the year and a half I spent dealing with recurring shingles.
Chetan Murthy
@Anotherlurker: I’m getting mine around 1 Nov. I got the covid+flu on 14 Oct, and decided I didn’t want to make a three-fer, just in case the covid booster kicked my ass. Ah, well, it didn’t. But now I don’t want to go back into that foreign building until 2wk pass (so the booster has a chance to its thing).
But yeah, I’m really, really looking forward to the shingles shot. I had chicken pox in high school, and I do NOT want to fuck around and find out about shingles.
dopey-o
i don’t understand why you think i might want to spend 25 minutes watching this. More context, or the promise of Twain-like mordant humor, or just a quick list of his points would pique my interest.
and I’m as bored as all-get-out these days.
Professor Bigfoot
There oughta be a Freedom-class corvette named USS Robert Smalls.
karen marie
@NotMax: Appeals in such cases are automatic, so there’s nothing especially gross or surprising about it. That he’s hiring a wingnut attorney, well, that’s going to be his problem.
raven
@Chetan Murthy: I had shingles in my eye, you don’t want it anywhere.
Chetan Murthy
@dopey-o:
Brad Delong has put up his rehearsal videos for his course in 20th Century Economic History (at Berkeley). I started watching, and it’s interesting and a really different POV on the history of the 20th Century (and really, on human history) but even at 1.25x, it’s just too goddamn slow and repetetive. So instead, I just went and downloaded his publicly available book draft: https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/2021-07-31-slouching-%23tocopyedit.pdf
And I’m halfway thru in one night. Much faster. I think videos suck. Just. Suck. You can’t skip forward while still being on the lookout for something interesting you want to stop for.
JimV
No, there is no Advent holiday in WH 40K. There might be a few archaic remnants of Catholicism on backwater planets but there are only two main religions: God-Emperor worship, and worship of the Chaos gods, such as Khorne. (Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!)
As fantasy universes go, it is not very worthwhile, except for Dan Abnett’s novels. He is just a great writer. He can make me laugh and he can make me cry. I just finished rereading “Titanicus” for the fourth time and it still moved me.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: And if I were the social sort, I’d be offering up his book (and, sure, video lectures) for a reading group. B/c it’s excellent, excellent stuff.
He’s a mainstream economist. But boy howdy, you read the book (or listen to the lectures) and you think he’s a hair-on-fire Senator Perfesser Warren acolyte. Or AOC convert. And all for sound economic reasons that he makes incontrovertibly clear.
currawong
You can’t beat a craft beer advent calendar – looks like I was too late to order mine:
https://www.beercartel.com.au/beer-advent-calendar
SpaceUnit
A bit OT, but there was a thread yesterday about, among other things, the Washington State football coach (Nick Rolovich) trying to get fired by refusing the university’s vaccine mandate. Mission accomplished.
ETA: Of course he’ll probably run for office now as a martyr and hero. Whatever.
The Pale Scot
@NotMax:
Oh my, NotMax,
The simple apparent reality is that barring some incredible technological breakthrough, technological civilization is going to start unraveling 20 yrs from now, if we are lucky. I think we have ten. The global reinsurer companies put out prospectuses a decade ago predicting government toppling famines after 2040. As I have with all the other climate predictions, I multiply that time period by .8. When the reinsurers business model dies, so do all the major industrial projects that keep the global economy running. Without insurance no one is going to risk their capital. The only variable I can see is whether the countries that get hit first in SE Asia launch nucs in an attempt to secure water. And whether nuclear power plants are secured and deactivated before they are abandoned.
Yea I’m downer. Since Reagan was elected, it seems the only outcome possible
debbie
@Feathers:
Welcome to that sorry club.
Kent
My local Costco has stacks of them. Apparently they are very popular.
Another Scott
ICYMI, …
Beautiful. That’s how you do it.
(via BettyBowers)
Cheers,
Scott.
Torrey
Not to forget Hannah Jones, Smalls’ wife. She was the one who thought to bring a white bedsheet so they could signal surrender once they encountered the Union Navy. (I’d originally heard it was a tablecloth, but Wikipedia says it was a bedsheet, so. . . .)
Anotherlurker
@raven: I had it in my left eye and cheek. Horrible. I looked like a bad makeup test for a 50s sci-fi film.
I made the mistake of looking up my symptoms on WebMD and the first thing that popped up was Tear Duct Cancer. I didn’t know that that was a thing.
debbie
@Another Scott:
That is a thing of beauty!
billcinsd
@Chetan Murthy: so he’s given up his love for methodological individualism, DGSE, free trade, and Neo-Keynesianism for actual Keynesianism
Kayla Rudbek
Thanks to you yarn enablers, I started on my mother-in-law’s blanket tonight. Size 17 needles (12.0 mm) necessary instead of the size 11 according to the pattern. The balls of yarn are hilariously large.
FlyingToaster
@JPL: WarriorTeen, back when they were under-12, loved the Lego Advent Calendars. By the time they were 8, they were demanding the Star Wars, the City, and the Friends. Which, honestly, were fun. Set up all three around 3 sides of a card table. Every afternoon we’d go and open that day’s and assemble it together, one calendar after another.
Becoming a teenager meant that all the Advent Calendars went by the wayside, along with Hess Trucks and Basher books. Alas.
Chetan Murthy
@billcinsd: That is a pithy but accurate[1] way of putting it. What’s interesting though, is that he explains -why- he changed. He provides a vast narrative explanation for why all that other stuff was wrong and Keynes was right.
[1] halfway thru the book (WWII just ended) but that’s accurate so far. Maybe something different soon. He has a really interesting take, bringing in Karl Polanyi’s work as a sort of moral underpinning to it all.
It is very,very, very rare that someone in his position (ex Assistant Treasury Secy, full prof at one of the premier universities in the world) has a Damascene conversion and also explains to onlookers what he believed before and after, and why he changed. He doesn’t spare himself. And he doesn’t share “The Market” either.
And for all that, he remains an economist, who believes in the power of markets and capitalism. And his narrative, his world-view, his thesis, is self-consistent.
wombat probability cloud
@prostratedragon: Found this, courtesy of the Google thing: https://explorebeaufortsc.com/hollywood-movie-finally-being-made-about-robert-smalls/
wombat probability cloud
@prostratedragon: I found this via the Google apparatus:
https://explorebeaufortsc.com/hollywood-movie-finally-being-made-about-robert-smalls/
Kent
Well, this is a BIG FUCKING DEAL here in Washington State: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32426315/nick-rolovich-washington-state-football-coach-refusing-state-mandated-covid-19-vaccine-source-says
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: All of this started after 2008, in his attempt to understand why he and his profession were so wrong about the Great Recession. So he’s also trying to explain that, and its aftermath (including Trumpism). It’s a ….. sizable task.
Kayla Rudbek
@Kent: the next thing you know, the Opus Dei types will be demanding that Notre Dame hire him…
Ruckus
@Salty Sam:
Served on a ship home ported in Charleston SC for 2 yrs.
Lot of walks around town because I didn’t have a car for over a year of that. Lots of history there, most of it celebrated for the losing side. I didn’t mind no longer being there after 2 yrs.
Mike in NC
Our minds are blown by the new season of American Horror Story on FX, which has President Eisenhower in the 1950s dealing with hostile aliens trying to pitch the Americans against the Soviets by offering advanced technology (like microwaves) in return for experimenting on kidnapped citizens. The guy playing Nixon is also very creepy. Character actor Neil MacDonough plays Ike.
wombat probability cloud
@Mike in Pasadena: Via the Google: https://explorebeaufortsc.com/hollywood-movie-finally-being-made-about-robert-smalls/
JWR
For all those clamoring for more good, and less bad, Biden news on this here blurgh, here’s some:
From NBC
It’s from the 16th, so maybe a bit old. (Yes, two days is old nowadays.) ETA. Nope, it’s from today after all.
MrsCoachB
@cursorial: very interesting…lived in that area for about 4 years, and there are so many families with the the last name Smalls….Beaufort County and adjacent Jasper County, and probably up into Hampton County.
Ruckus
@Anotherlurker:
A year and a half? Damn that’s about 50 years too long.
I won’t tell you how long I suffered but in a contest of shingles time I would have come in a long ways behind you.
debbie
I admire Smalls’s chutzpah!
Prometheus Shrugged
@prostratedragon: Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno comes pretty close to capturing the Robert Smalls story.
Benito Cereno is based on a different true story, but it’s pretty clear that Melville must have also known about Smalls.
Definitely excellent movie material.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
You want to get that shot. You want that shot more than pretty much any other. I had the shingles up the right side of my neck and face. I’d rather go through the accident where I got hit head on by a truck – and I wasn’t in a car. Again. I have no idea how one would deal with shingles for a year and a half.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
Amen to that. Just waiting until I feel safe leaving the house. I only left for the booster b/c …. well, booster.
Tony Gerace
@Baud: Stealing the ship might have been easier than it seemed, given the fact that supporters of the Confederacy were really, really dumb.
Ken
@Another Scott: Proverbially (shorthand for “false but it’s a better story this way”) Australians live on a continent where absolutely everything is deadly except some of the sheep, so it makes sense that they’d handle COVID properly.
Rukus
@Chetan Murthy:
I’d bet that anyone who has had shingles would say that even in the middle of a pandemic – get the damn shot.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Alestorm – Quest For Ships
Anotherlurker
@Ruckus: It kept on cycling, month to month. Started by feeling a little sick and achy, later rashes and lesions and burning pain, stabbing pain and numbness. Month 2 was death-like. Same pain symptoms but more intense. Pain cycled but sometimes occurred all at the same time. Fatigue was awful. Sleeping up to 20 hours/day.
Next month started slowly feeling a bit better and in month 4 almost felt normal, but tired. This could last into month 5 when it all started again.
My case started with intense stress in my life. Doc said stress could be a big factor.
I only started to recover once I fled the source of the stress. In my case the source of the stress was Superstorm Sandy followed by me moving to Fla. to start my life over again. Fla. was very toxic for me. I love the fishing and diving but I ended up despising the myriad types of toxic asshole I kept running across. Being from NY, I thought I knew every type of asshole there is, but boy was I wrong.
I made a move to SF East Bay, at the urging of my oldest friend, and I recovered my health about 6 months later. I revived my career to the extent that I work some physical days in TV sports, just to keep my hand in and prove that I can still work a 10 hour day and walk up to 7 miles in the course of it.
Get the vaccine.
Fake Irishman
@cursorial:
“the Memory Palace” is an astonishingly good podcast. Very short segments packed with incredible history. My wife made me listen to the Robert Smalls one and I’ve appreciate it ever since.
sdhays
@Another Scott: I remember an Australian friend years ago telling me that Australians liked to put Texans in their place by reminding any Texan that came their way that Australia has a ranch that’s bigger than Texas.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Means testing is a horrible thing.
My autistic brother can’t work more than 1 day a week or he risks losing his benefits.
:-(
But with enough Democrats we can fix it later. And with enough Democrats we can fix it sooner. Get the program started, claim the win, and elect more Democrats to fix it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Peale
Had to update my phone to iOS 15 for work. Whomever thought it was a nifty idea to put the browser address bar on the bottom is a real genius. I mean 25 years of using browsers and finally someone moved it to a unique location. My eyes are rolling.
Another Scott
@sdhays: The Mercator Projection has a lot to answer for!!
(via TerribleMaps)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Too many links in the tweet, I guess. Help?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anotherlurker
@Anotherlurker: BTW, I am pushing 70.
patrick II
A significant military base should definitely be named after this guy.
JWR
@Another Scott:
QFT!
Also, I think he’s jonesin’ for Ronald Reagan coo-cooing coo-coo in his ears. Sh8t fer brains needs to spend less time on his yacht, er, i mean his houseboat.
prostratedragon
@Kayla Rudbek: Not this year.
Notre Dame: ranked #13, 5-1 record
Wash State: unranked, no votes, 3-2 record
Rukus
@Peale:
Same reaction here. I wonder if they moved it just to fuck with us….
Rukus
@JWR:
Yes. Yes it is. But what is the alternative? Don’t check and risk/have massive cheating? Maybe actually try to help people survive and prosper rather than a few become uber wealthy, like now that the Forbes four hundred are all billionaires? I think that it is very likely that our entire tax system needs an overhaul so that those wealthy actually pay a higher percentage than people that actually work for someone else for a regular paycheck.
thalarctosMaritimus
@gwangung: mr thalarctos and I watched your performance of it when it streamed–4 thumbs up!
Please do let us know when it’s available on demand.