Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'll be looking back at Ty@50 wistfully before too long.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Why is everyone so "glass is half-empty?"

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

With the help of the local mob, yes.

Although I have to think it's probably not unique to us either.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

RT!!! Have you seen Ugly Delicious? A series with David Chang (momofuku) looking at different foods. It is where i got my Naples Pizza info (episode 1). But episode 3 or 4 is called "Shrimp or Crawfish." it contrasts N.O. and Houston food. Especially focused on a Vietnamese area (Crawfish and Noodles is a featured place for location). it looks amazing- but you're East side and that's West?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Meanwhile, outside the original Woodstock: https://www.blenheimpalace.com/

McCain
 

If you have Apple News on your phone, there's an excerpt from his soon to be released book that's worth reading. Because it's an Apple exclusive, there's no way for me to link it here (or I'm just that hopeless a Luddite).

Anyway, it's about the necessity of compromise and bridge building. Remaining naive about the possibility of moderate control and compromise, I dug the article.

Nothing revelatory. But compromise isn't a "eureka" concept.

And it's worth reading because, based on news stories, McCain is truly circling the drain. It'll be interesting to see how the media and Trump react when two moderate, unquestionably dedicated servants like H.W. Bush and McCain exit the stage over the next months to year or so.

I never cared for McCain's war-mongering, but he couldn't have been worse than Bush (who despicably beat him with that racist campaign in the South in 2000). It's hard not think the world would have been a lot better off if it had been McCain v. Gore in 2000, and either one of them had won.

And it's damn hard not to see the brilliance of H.W. in stopping short of removing Saddam in Desert Storm.

McCain also refused to play the "secret Muslim" card on Obama, or engage in the other dog whistles, in 2008. When he corrected the woman who called Obama a socialist and a Muslim on stage and said, "No, he's a good man. We just disagree," isn't that How We're Supposed to Do It? They ought to force kids to watch that at the outset of every Poli Sci elective.

It's a good book excerpt, in you have an Apple News feed.

Michelle Wolf
 

A few jokes flopped, but on balance, it was pretty hysterical. The "softball team" joke alone was worth the price of admission: https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...speech-w519664

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Whoa.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The problem with ethnic food (even Chinese) in the suburbs is that it has to be completely de-spiced to appeal to the overwhelmingly bland suburban palate. The number of suburbanites I've been exposed to who cannot stomach any form of spice is enough to make me never want to move to the suburbs by itself.

The problem with your theory about delivery in the burbs is gas prices and time spent driving. It's not worth it to a restaurant for a delivery guy at a non-chain restaurant to try to cover the 5 square miles it would take to have enough orders to justify delivery service. I could be wrong, but when I go to my ex-wife's house, their options are pathetic. And they have to drive for 5 mins to get milk, 10 to get actual groceries, and between 10 and 30 to get to any restaurant that's halfway decent.

But, whatever. I hope delivery explodes in the suburbs such that you're living the life of a pretty little flower! Suburbanites feel superior about how they live, city people feel the same. We just value different things. I despise the "create my own little pod" approach to life. But that's probably not how most suburbanites view how they live. They just want a yard and some space. Fair enough.

But the mall is everything that's wrong with this country. I'm not budging on that.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I bet this is true. And it probably has nothing to do with the fact that white people and their money fled cities for the suburbs where they could erect huge private schools or, worse, public schools in carefully drawn districts at which poor and diverse students have no shot to attend.

Great! This is the exception.

I look down on no good food. I look down on strip malls, which are a fucking blight.

I know I made it sound like a competition. But I don't really care which is better or worse. It's completely subjective, based on what you like and, most likely, where you grew up. I'm a city kid. I don't understand wanting to live in isolation (although, some of the best isolation is in city anonymity). I would never want to live in a place where there is a strictly homogenous experience. I think country clubs are fucking stupid, exclusionary, and full of assholes who spend all their time jerking each other off (I've been to quite a few for golf--and I love when they say, "Hey! Why don't you join? We have so few black members." Really? I wonder why?).

The problem I have with the suburbs is that it is self-segregation performed by people who tell themselves it's about the schools or the space or the yard or the safety. And self-segregation by scared white people is the biggest problem this country has, in my opinion.

Sorry. I tried to be reasonable. I guess it's not possible.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

We have this. It's the coop or condo board and it's made up of the same type of asshole.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Only assholes commute by car into NYC. I'm not sure I know *anyone* who does this.

Delivery is absolutely vital. That doesn't mean you don't go out to dinner. But if you or your spouse works late, you're not trying to go out to dinner, homie. Don't come at me with your temporary NYC ways. I can spot a visitor from a mile away from the goofy look on your face.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

That was the best thing about that show. Whatever agent unleashed Mary-Louise Parker's constant smarmy, sideways glance, stupid fucking grin on the world needs to be destroyed.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I say this to anyone that listens: No one lives in more than 2,000 square feet of space (and that's the absolute most). No one. All the rest of the space is there to show off or to avoid parenting. "Oh the kids? They're down in the built-out basement with their friends. We never go down there. They're probably not taking every fucking opioid they can get their hands on."

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Your absolute best work. And I formulated that opinion solely from you naming someone, "Khaki."

TM

Re: Michelle Wolf
 

Agreed.

Also, the "Flint still doesn't have clean water" is brilliant. It's true, it's irrefutable, and it lights up everyone in the damn room - those who have done squat, those who have not covered it, those who don't want to talk about.

Ultimate response from now on to just about anyone in government or media complaining about anything.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Looks like you found a decent mix. I also hate the small, manufactured suburban "towns" you talk about, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm sure your neighbors are nice people. But they all have the same experience. I like going to different neighborhoods to see friends. I'm not saying people in suburbs are dicks because they're in the suburbs. Cities have waaaay more than our fair share of dicks. I just like that there is so much diversity (color, thought, experience--all kinds of diversity). If I had to talk about lawns or cars or barbecue grills or outdoor fucking pizza ovens or power washers or any of that suburban shit, I'd blow my brains out.

Do your neighbors do the pop in? I don't know how that's not the leading cause of violent murder.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I missed Khaki. Yes, brilliant.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is the only time I sympathize with the gun nuts.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is the fundamental issue I'm going to have if we move in to the city at some point. I'd say no one person really lives in more than 1,000, but for any two people it's not the same 1,000 (e.g., one of us occupies the library, one the workshop, etc.). But you live in more than 2000 for a while and boy do you end up with stuff.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Bullshit you can. I don't wear my Barney Greengrass or Find Brooklyn t-shirts until I get back to Michigan.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Yes and no. And this may just be my experience, but the parents of kids on suburban teams say shit like, "Well, if they really want their kids to be good, they should pay the extra to have them on a good travel team." Explaining how travel teams have taken something that everyone used to be able to do and have fun with, and monetizing it to give rich kids yet another advantage doesn't fucking compute. I've also heard "This is one of the city teams where the kids are all from bad neighborhoods," talking about fucking 9 year olds. This shit is constant. My ex-wife and I spend all of our time talking to just each other at games because the parents are so awful. So, that's saying something (although, we're pretty good friends, so maybe it's not.)

It's the isolation that's the problem. It's a manufactured, sheltered experience in which stereotypes and bad experiences one person had with a black person that one time become gospel and shared and re-shared until there is no tolerance for people who look different at all. These are the people who carve the black people they know out of what black people are allowed to be in their minds because they're different somehow. How someone feels comfortable enough with me to talk about how awful the neighborhood is they had to drive through to get to a tournament is beyond me. I look at them like they're fucking crazy, but they don't get it.

To be fair, there are people who do this in the city too, but they're mostly rich assholes who are going to look down on people no matter where the fuck they are (and always have).* In cities, we isolate ourselves with buildings people don't belong in, or schools in districts drawn up specifically to exclude, etc. There is no avoiding it. It just feels like the norm in the suburbs (at least the ones I'm familiar with) is a level of segregation by race and by socio-economic class. And I hate it. At least kids can just be kids at the playground and parents tend to be open to talking to other, different, parents there. The subway is the great equalizer. And we can all bond over our collective hate for tourists.

TM

*See: https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/class-divide, about Avenues, which they put in my neighborhood (the same one I grew up in), which just turns my stomach. (And the amazing little girl they spend some time on form the projects down the street from Avenues was rejected after the making of this documentary, I think.)

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Not trying to be difficult because I agree with you. But the worst policy decisions we made arehemming in poor and minority people in throw away neighborhoods and then basing every single policy we have instituted from then on on shaming them, punishing them, over-policing them, and depriving them of resources. Building freeways around their neighborhoods to accommodate white flight (and so the people in them can be completely avoided so we can pretend they don't exist) is just part of that problem.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Kanye is canceled.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Dry and slow?

TM

Re: McCain
 

This is not really true. While that moment was a good one, you can't stand against that kind of bullshit and then pick a fucking rabid, racist, psycho as your running mate to reel in all of the rabid, racist, psychos in your party at the same time. There is no "having it both ways" when it comes to those people. And McCain with that pick (and Rove/Bush) did more to wake up that despicable portion of the electorate than anyone else.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Even a little isolation/space can be damning.

So i live in a tiny little suburb that is heavily white, 90% easy. And it votes 70% liberal dem. But we are part of a very diverse school district. So if you have kids, and certainly kids in sports, you know black kids. And it is less than a square mile, so there are very diverse streets within a quarter mile of almost everywhere in my town.

The worst thing I've seen was a Next Door thread. The HS football team sends players out to sell stupid coupons. Some old lady writes, "3 young black kids were on my porch, ringing my doorbell. I peeked out the window, but didn't answer. Anyone else see them?"

Someone else, who I know, wrote, "umm, they are just nice kids trying to play football for the HS. Safe, perfectly safe."

So far the thread was bad, but it wasn't too bad. Now understand, ND is open to kids from the HS, white and black kids.

After the first exchange there were a dozen follow up posts by people I know have kids in the school that were generally, "I bought tickets, and introduced myself. They were seniors, one plays CB, one RB and one LB."

After a couple the tone was "I'm brave, look what i did!' which might actually convey how they felt, but boy was it an ugly thing to see, especially given the schools their kids were in.

So I was posting "Please delete this thread!" Over and over, hoping no kids saw how ugly/stupid people are.

Re: McCain
 

What are the rest of us supposed to do when one political party is controlled by people who are opposed to compromise as a matter of principal?

Re: McCain
 

Well, i can tell you what the Rs did after Obama's first two years if you wanna know.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is certainly true in places but it totally depends on where you are. In DC, for example, you get better Chinese food in the suburbs than in the city. There is no good Chinese food in DC's Chinatown. Sichuan Pavillion in Rockville, to name one place, is better by miles than any Chinese in the District.

The flip side is that as restaurants orient more to delivery, they don't need to locate in expensive locations, which is a huge savings. One danger with delivery is the possibility that some intermediary will monopolize the space and capture all of the savings, but I don't see why it'll be a winner-take-all market.

To be clear, I would rather live somewhere urban than somewhere suburban. I moved to my present spot for a job nearby, and now I don't want to move my kids out of their school. But not for them, I would be back in a city.

With you. And tie it back to food, the rents are sufficiently high at the mall that the food is almost never any good.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Actually, it is false. There are some good DCPS schools. I say this from first-hand experience.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Marie Kondo is largely right. You don't need that stuff, so get rid of it.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Chinatown was a joke when i lived there, but Adams Morgan and surrounds included?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

More wonking.

This is absolutely excellent. Easier to read here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/9...121901568.html

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Seems like these experiences depend so much on the cities and suburbs in question. In my area, you can regularly see soccer teams with poor Hispanic kids from Salinas or East San Jose destroying soccer teams with affluent kids from Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

No argument on any of this. Cities are denser, which means more diversity across all sorts of dimensions.

Re: McCain
 

If you want to troll you're going to need to try harder.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Pretty expensive nowadays. I don't live in DC now and don't get there much, but good Chinese needs lower rents because high rents force the restaurant to play it safe with boring food that more people will like.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Most of my conversations with my fellow suburban parents about travel teams revolve around how expensive they are and how it's just a way to make $$ off our kids. And what a weekend waster it is for all involved. A lot of these programs have 3 or 4 teams from the same town for the same grade(s) based on skill, so your child is either on the A,B or C team. Maybe the A team kids get to play lacrosse or soccer in college, but those B and C kids likely won't and are basically subsidizing the A teams.

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress...6&h=299&crop=1

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Not in a neighborhood full of ethnic food it doesn't. DC is fucking DC. Per square mile NW has more really strong ethnic food than anywhere.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Fair point, although as you allude to, cars and freeways to the suburbs were among the tools used to create those conditions.