Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

#chinaski

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Thanks to everyone who congratulated me on this win, and we’ve never had more people congratulating a winner, this is bigly (Bigly autocorrrects to bigot, hmmm) news. You ever wonder why Ty doesn’t report I had the biggest win ever? I’m looking at the board and there’s nothing saying I had the most, and I know I did, I saw them all out there congratulating me, you have to wonder how Ty can be so fake?

I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.
 

Congrats to Hank Chinaski, he of the avatar with a good tan and a jaunty devil-may-care grin!

Apropos of nothing, as a just-after-the-move-to-Infirmation kinda guy, I would pay Less* $20 to write the True History of the Greedy (sniff) Associates.

Heck, $25. Sometimes you have to say “what the heck,” Joel.

*Chef is too nice to be honest, amirite?

Re: I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.
 

Paigow, whom I’ve hugged, but never fucked, would object and point out that Less was likely too drunk.

Re: I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.
 

Re: I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.
 

But I am the only one left still posting.

Thanks for the Recommendation
 

Sapiens is highly entertaining.

“How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.”

. . .

“Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition.”

. . .

“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television.”

From the "No Shit" Desk
 

Based on statistical analysis of policy, and ability to impact policy, the US is an oligarchy: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...2B/core-reader

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

If that were true I should be able to find plain salted kettle cooked potato chips. There is a reason potato chips are loved- they taste good! Why can't that be enough? No, consumers have apparently demanded so many odd ball flavors (I accidentally bought vinegar/salt/bar-b-q the other day) that there is no room on the shelves for the thing that made them popular in the first place. It's like if you went to a whore house and asked for straight sex and they say "nope, we're only serving anal today?"

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

Re anal, this axiom from Hitchens holds (except as to good champagne, which is delightful): "The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics." I'd pass on that brothel, particularly if the anal were offered as something exotic. It's not. I'd put it in the category of "things you try because they're right in front of you and... well, otherwise, you'll always wonder what it's like." (Strangely, however, the process of discovery there persists from sexual partner to sexual partner. Maybe this one is different...)

But on the more pressing and disturbing issue you've raised, I'd say if you can't buy decent plain, salted, kettle cooked chips in any store near you, You Need to Move. Sure, it takes some work to locate them amidst the forty variants of sriracha bbq filling the shelves of the local Whole Foods, but with a little determination, a guy with an eye for detail like yours can find the right crisps.

Eye Rolling
 

That reflects very, very poorly on you, Sir.

Sn(And you bet the Rams)M

Concierge Care
 

Regardless, get checked for Hep C.

Sn(Friend of the Friendless)M

Re: Concierge Care
 

The sores weren’t from falling and scraping your face? What else did you lie about?

Re: I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.
 

Ahem.

Haven't spoken to Chef (or Ms. Chef) in a few years, but I assume we're good. Attended Plate's wedding, used to pal around NYC with Cornhole. Thurgreed is a friend. Penske and I worked together. Dated Multo. Married Catrin. Texted with SI yesterday and C2d 3 days ago.

Correct, Less should write the book.

SnM

Re: Concierge Care
 

It's a long story:

The sores came when I went outside at 2am in the cold (rather than texting DoorDash or UberEats) to get myself a delicious $6 Quiznos sandwich. As I returned home, while I was on the phone and holding my delicious sandwich, some crazy MFers started yelling "This Isn't MAGA Country - it's SUBWAY COUNTRY" - or at least I think they did, since they were wearing scarves, and a balaclava and I was wearing a hat and earmuffs (it's minus 5), well. one ear muff because my other ear is frozen to the phone. Anyway, they attack me, but I successfully fend them off because I'm a Ninja man, and a Ninja man only bleeds on the inside. I ignore the security guards when I get home, because my delicious sammich is intact. I eat the sandwich, and call my publicist to concoct a story and call the cops.

So no, the sores were from the Hep C. Get checked.

Sn(6th grade Health Class)M

Song Parodies
 

Speaking of GA History, we had a long history of song parodies. My personal best effort by far was "Protect Ya' Check" by the GA Tang Clan (with Thurgreed as Method. Chef was ODB (lol). My lines were Genius. I think Multo was Raekwon, but I cant recall).

The best, all time, was a 3 page parody of the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by, I think, Consigliere Wartime, but someone correct me on this. And I think that was lost to the Yahoo-Infirm merger.

Regardless, here's my new entry, set to the sounds of the late Chris Cornell and Soundgarden:

[And fuck Northam]
___

Put the infant in the pan
[Kill the infant while you can]
Coonman

Keep the infant comfortable
[Resuscitate if Press should call]
Coonman

Coonman, take a picture with the Klan
Save me, I'm defending PP's plan
Save me, yeah
Save, oh

Well, all my friends are Democrats
[All my friends wear Hoods and Masks]
Coonman

All my friends are bailing fast.
[I'll do the Moonwalk if they ask!]
Coonman

Sn(Northam needs to go, 'Nuff said)M

Re: Song Parodies
 

This might come of as legitimate if you had ever, once, said the same about anyone in your racist-filled party. Ever. FOH.

TM

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

No spelling/grammar error irks me more these days than the confusion of "rein" with "reign". For fuck's sake people. We're all doomed to fire and flood but let's at least go down with some dignity.

Hi all. Hank, you can get regular kettle cooked potato chips in Canada. Zip across the border to a Loblaws and get yourself some President's Choice Original Flavour.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

How timely. I will be in Vancouver, Jasper, Banff and Calgary next week. I can look for all the colours and flavours I can find at the theatre organisation and by by cheque, eh?

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

In fairness to Harari, I pulled that from a review of the book. His original text may not contain the error.

Re: Thanks for the Recommendation
 

Sweet trip! Have fun and #dontdrivehigh #neconduitpasgele

Palace Intrigue
 

Re: Song Parodies
 

He hated Trump, and Trump is the GOP.

I get your point, but he kinda has a defense there (said with Larry David inflection).

Re: Song Parodies
 

Are you talking about Slave? Because if you are, you are sorely mistaken.

TM

Re: Song Parodies
 

I won’t claim the most solid memory, but I seem to recall he was anti-Trump. I don’t remember him being SEC’s variant of NeverTrumper, but he was solidly against Trump in GOP primaries.

Re: Song Parodies
 

I've talked to him a ton about Trump (early after he was sworn in). He's a Trump guy. Don't know when it happened, but he's the walking personification of the entire Republican Party.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Serious Question:

What's the expiration date, or statute of limitations, for attacking a politician for an ancient sin?

Warren's 1986 bar card is now an issue? Is this what we're going to use to evaluate her today? Even if she was lying intentionally, does this eclipse all of her policies? Her ideas are now invalid because she lied about ancestry 33 years ago?

Northam's photos are appalling, and it's impossible to defend him based on lack of judgment alone (assuming he's not racist or has evolved considerably from what he was when he posed for those photos). But let's say he was a guy like Robert Byrd, who was in the KKK, and admitted it, but disavowed it later in life and pushed anti-racist policies while a legislator. If we could go back in time, should he (and Byrd) have been denied the ability to attain office for life?

Then you have this Fairfax incident. This is an old allegation, and so far as I see, the guy has no others lodged against him, and the timing suggests Northam is using it against him. Maybe it's not the best idea to elevate what appears to be a political hit-job to the level of probably-true-accusation?

I don't think a racist or sex predator deserves much of a second chance, as I don't believe people with those issues really "evolve" very much. But that's my bias. There are probably a number of people who do evolve beyond awful things they thought and did decades ago. And certainly, that one considered herself a native American, or used it for political gain, 30 years ago, seems to be an indictment long past its sell-by date.

Maybe we should put a statute of limitation on relevance of past acts? Maybe 15 years for non-violent bad behaviors? Because these gotcha attacks are just getting stupid, and they're potentially costing us decent candidates with policies worthy of debate, like Warren, while people like Trump and Richard Blumenthal are inexplicably given passes.

Sometimes, the way things were done in the past are preferable. In the past, a politician's bad acts or dumb statements could in most instances be forgotten or swept under the rug. This allowed us to have serial philanderers like JFK in office, or libertines like Charlie Wilson in Congress. Our modern day peanut gallery of internet sleuths ripping down people like Warren simply for the sheer glee of destroying her is doing no one any favors.

We need a right to be forgotten, at least for politicians, or we're even more fucked than we think.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

No. They do it for all sorts of reason, often political.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

I know you don't Facebook, but I think you can access this without an account: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...00008083698763 If you can't, let me know and I'll cut /paste in a PM for you.

This has to do with Liam Neeson thing, but I think it comes down to "how are you today?" This particular author comes down on the side of "clearly he is appalled at his past behavior and has learned something from it" with regard to Neeson. It's going to come down to a case-by-case basis, I think. With Warren, I think she's handled this entire issue badly, and so it's going to dog her for quite some time. With Northam, he fumbled right out of the gate and hasn't recovered. We'll see what happens with the AG guy. Since he's the one bringing it forward and presumably he's seen the mess Northam made, maybe he'll be able to present it better and convince the world that that isn't him anymore.

But as the piece above says, there are a shit-ton of people out there with downright racist pasts. Republicans don't seem to care as much about whether their candidates were (or are) racist/sexist/xenophobic/etc. I would have said they have a Jesus litmus test, but, well, Trump. Democrats do. But they don't know how to handle people who evolve.

I think a lot of it goes to the fact that no one deserves to be on top. NO ONE. And for each of the "oops, I wore blackface" idiots out there, there are plenty of perfectly good replacements who not once even considered it. And often they are the very people who the idiot was marginalizing/mocking/disparaging.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

I think it depends on the context. Easy for me to say, but I think a long ago black face might be forgivable from someone with a demonstrated record of working for racial equality after they accept responsibility, admit wrongdoing, express understanding of the harm and seriously apology. For example, maybe Herron's response was adequate, especially as he disclosed it himself (I don't know anything about his record). But it's not really my call and I'm mostly trying to listen on these things.

Meanwhile, Northam's bungling settles the question for me.

I don't think it's an issue that actually moves anyone, and I'm not sure who we are pretending was harmed.

I do, but then again, I think we're all sorta racist. But they've got to do the work.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

An aside to start... The Enoch Powell rally photo caused me to recall Eric Clapton's famous deranged racist speech in favor of Powell. (You can look that up. As a Clapton fan, and ascribing his behavior then to obvious multiple addictions, I don't want to link that rotten moment in his history.)

I agree that no one deserves to be on top. But due to a number of litmus tests we apply, there does seem to be a category of people who fit the acceptable mold. You must:

1. Have no consequential arrests;
2. Have had no mental health issues;
3. No history of enjoying recreational drugs and not disavowing them rigorously;
4. No libertine sexual exploits;
5. No admitted atheism;
6. No bisexuality;
7. No affairs (for which you haven't repented to some megachurch minister)

There are many more, but you get the point. We've allowed the puritans to decide who can ascend to office. That's caused us to elect all these closet creeps who have KKK photos in yearbooks or histories of sexual abuse allegations. And Trump hasn't broken that mold. He's an aberrational protest candidate.

People who have healthy social lives - who like to fuck, take a drug or drink or both now and again, tell a blue joke - don't have bizarre skeletons. They tend to have a blase, open book approach to their appetites and recreation.

We need to behave like European voters -- to shrug off personal issues and elect people based on policy. To apply an adult enough to view to surmise, "Warren may have played the game a bit dishonorably, but it was a long time ago, and what matters now are her policies."

But I doubt this will happen. Scolds and scowls from the Right have decided who's pure enough for office since the nation started. And all I see emerging now is a Left variety of this sad hazing/winnowing ritual. Thus, I think giving politicians a right to be forgotten as to nonviolent past misdeeds is the only fix.

The article was spot-on, by the way. If you're flipping out over Neeson's honest and helpful comments, you need a reading comp teacher. You're a fucking idiot.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

It is an "issue" used to belittle and ridicule someone without arguing with them. Look, people do that all the time, and usually it's not worth bothering with.

In this case, it's the link of the belittling with a racial slur that upsets me. I don't give a shit if you want to make fun of some mannerism or the like, such as Bernie's finger wag, but when you use a racial slur to do it, my skin crawls and my blood boils.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Absolutely. He should be remembered for dropping his kid out the window.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

It's a really subjective thing.

"It's me and I'm sorry" to "It's actually not me" is strange. When you find that photo, your handlers have to get the facts down cold, near immediately.

Sure it does. Warren will never get a fair hearing on the issues she raises because the media will nail her on the Native American thing relentlessly, and the right wing media machine will trumpet it so loudly no one will hear anything else. And the dumbfuck voters and TV addicts will fixate on it like the only thing of significance to this person is whether she is or isn't some percentage Native American.

I think everybody should get a second chance. Buhhhhhhtttt... Putting on blackface? Where the fuck do we get these people? I'm biased, perhaps, but it's not like I grew up in a diverse area. We have loads of racists all over the area where I was raised. But if you put on black face, two things would happen: You'd get your ass beaten down, and people would think you were a seriously fucked up freak. You have to be a damn strange fuck to put on blackface. (Unless you're Robert Downey in Tropic Thunder.)

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

poty

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Nah, people love a redemption story. The second-place candidate for mayor, and a sitting state legislator, was convicted of felony burglary (at 19) and talks about his past as part of his story. Yeah, you guessed, he's a white guy.

Our immediately past mayor talked about her history of depression. But she didn't get re-elected and, yeah, white.

Both of those politicians are addicts, but yeah, now sober.

Do you think of Obama as having disavowed recreational drugs rigorously? I guess I don't and I think this one has sorta died with the prior two presidents, both known drug users.

If it's not dead, legal weed is going to kill it. I mean, you're probably not going to get elected on a "coke is great I do it all the time" platform, but having done it and just not talking about it is probably fine.

Again, I don't know that consensual, non-extramarital activities among adults are really an obstacle.

Photos and video of said activities might be, at least until such point as literally everyone has those materials out there in the public (which is coming).

Yeah, that one is still a third rail.

The most recently elected senator from Arizona says hi.

The current president cheated on each of his three wives, so...

I think you're right that we're seeing voters require higher standards of personal conduct but I think that's a good thing.

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

I mean, that's why Northam's "I don't know if it's me" is so hard to believe, but then people used to do lots of stupid shit. People are doing stupid shit right now.

I recall my friend group in college having a "pimps and hoes" party (I can't recall if I attended, seems likely, but doubtful I put much effort into dressing up), a concept that is essentially acting out stereotypes. Is that really so different?

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

You have the ability to write a thoughtful post and then completely fuck it up in an instant. Jesus Christ.

Of course you can flip out over what Neeson said. He said he actually went out with a weapon looking for trouble so that he could fucking kill a random, innocent black person. That shit is not normal. Sure he's grown from it. Sure he lived in a place of daily, awful violence. I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt that he's a completely different person. But you don't get to say shit like that without people freaking the fuck out. The key is to have a thoughtful discussion. You started to and then, being Sebby, you completely fucked it all up.

I wish Robin Roberts had engaged him on this constant in the white community--and I've heard it so many fucking times: People of color who commit some heinous crime or do something awful have that action attributed to their race. White people who do the same are bad eggs. People of color who accomplish amazing things (or any level of success) (i) benefited from some type of assistance because of their color and/or (ii) have that success attributed to them as an individual, despite their race. That's why he was looking for any black person at all.

When asked by Roberts if he would have gone out "hunting" random white people to murder if the white person was a racist, Liam Neesons automatically changed the hypo because he couldn't even conceive of just hunting white people. He said if it were a Scot or a Lithuanian he'd have gone looking for them. But he wasn't hunting black Brits or Nigerians or whatever. He was looking for any black person, period. The distinction didn't even occur to him.

TM

Re: Northam, Warren, Fairfax...
 

Piecing through his various statements, I think that he had never seen the yearbook and assumed the picture was the Michael Jackson one, saw the picture, then had to explain that yeah, I was once in blackface, but not THAT blackface.

And I suppose if one had to rank blackface Michael Jackson would be slightly better than prop in Klan group costume. But really, it's not better.

Coincidentally, the night all of this was going down, my husband and I watched BlackkKlansman and we talked about how weird it must have been for the actors to have to wear those robes and say that dialogue. And how hard it must have been for Spike Lee to write it. My husband read that Spike Lee channeled Richard Pryor writing Blazing Saddles and almost wrote it as an absurd comedy so as to get through it.

Also, the story the cop tells the Klan to get immediately accepted as a bona fide racist is nearly EXACTLY the same one that Liam Neeson tells. It's a sister instead of unidentified relative, but it's nearly identical.