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That's Nathan Embretson, a bookseller at Pendragon Books in Oakland. There's not a single copy on the shelf. Embretson said no one has asked for it except for one guy, who was kidding.
"He said he wanted to look at it but he also said he didn't really want to read it," Embretson said. "Anyway, he certainly didn't want to buy it. I think he regarded looking at it as a kind of punishment."
"Anything like that we wouldn't carry," said clerk Emily Stackhouse. "We're a small store and it would probably gross us all out. Some things you carry because of freedom of speech, but a book like that is just gross."
One customer did put in a special request for the book one evening but, perhaps thinking better in the light of day, failed to show up and actually pay money for it, Stackhouse said.
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202 comments:
1 – 200 of 202 Newer› Newest»Hmm, thinking people buy their books from Amazon and save money.
I think he meant to say "Our customer are self-absorbed people."
Only winners here are Sarah Palin and Amazon.
...and he would know it's "drivel" how? Sure as hell, he hasn't read it.
Sounds like Michelle Goldberg's kind of bookstore.
They probably stock Playgirl too.
Gawd he sounds like my grandfather who, bless his soul, has been dead now for thirty years. Strange who becomes the fuddy duddies of society anymore. And he probably thinks he's hip.
And I'd bet that the bookstore doesn't carry von Hayek, Milton Friedman, or the Federalist Papers, either. If you want Fritz Fanon, Rigoberta Menchu, and gendered narratives, however, you probably are in luck. Lots and lots of intellectual diversity and truth telling to power, don't you know.
I like this comment at the end of the column
so the Chron describes Sarah Palin as a "moose hunter" and "failed vice-presidential candidate"...so I guess that makes Al Gore a carbon-credit scam artist and failed presidential candidate...but the ever-so-liberal Chron would NEVER make that comparison...
Assuming the store owner knows his customers and is pretty sure that Going Rogue is a book they likely wouldn't buy why not just say that: stocking a book I've determined won't sell is not what I'm in business for? There's no arguing with that position; not if you believe in free enterprise.
Very nuanced!
Even if I new that 99% on my customers would not but the book I would a a few copies of a best seller in for strange people to buy and regulars to mock.
ricpic beat me to it.
I doubt the Christian bookstore down the street is selling the new Dykes to Watch Out For, either.
Small bookstores have to know their customers to stay open. Why would conservatives whine about them targeting their audience? Because conservatives don't have principles, they have dogmas, just like everyone else.
I think there's a real need on some people's part to feel like they're brave, BRAVE little soldiers, facing down the glaring, menacing liberal hordes at Barnes and Noble who want to snatch and burn their Palin book.
I agree with ricpic and Beth. A successful small business owner has to know his or her customers and buy accordingly. Cost of inventory is not just a B-school fable.
It's not as though he's censoring the book -- it's available through Amazon and I imagine that the local Barnes & Nobel carries it (if not, there's always Borders just a couple miles away).
(Of course you didn't need to be quite so snarky, Beth. A few of us really do have principles. Or like to think we do. And some left-leaning people really do get pretty in-your-face to the point where violence is threatened.)
Open-minded as a bowling ball.
Why would Going Rogue appeal to a community that has normalized coloring outside the lines, so to speak? Kinkily Conventional might grab some area interest
I don't have any problem with any store-owner that doesn't feel like carrying the book, but the clerks they interviwed sound like stuck-up twerps.
I assume that was the point of the post.
"Some things you carry because of freedom of speech, but a book like that is just gross."
Hey, this is direct and to the point. Too bad it's mindless and contrary to their perceived beliefs of freedom of speech. They don't have to carry the book, so I won't begrudge them, but to make this above statement with a straight face is symptomatic of the nonsensical shallow and pervasive unthought that liberals/leftists bring to bear.
"We don't stock it because our regular customers wouldn't buy it."
Acceptable
"We don't stock it because we're too cool and smart to be exposed to different opinions."
Mockable
I don't know about Borders. For years people have complained about conservative books not being stocked at Borders or hidden if they do bother to stock them.
Consequently, it is no surprise that Borders has been teetering on bankruptcy for a while now. Everyone is going to Amazon instead.
I can't remember the last time I went to Borders -- and I used to frequent the original Borders bookstore, back when they were on State Street, near the State Theater in Ann Arbor.
So a new tag had to be created for topics that might elicit a "fear" of taking stupid people seriously.
Take that, you arrogant Lefties! Touche!
(Cues images of cartoon characters fighting.)
This book store owner isn't stocking Sarah Palin's book because SHE DRIVES HIM COMPLETELY BONKERS. And he's scared of Palin, never forget that.
chickenlittle: They probably stock Playgirl too.
They stopped publishing magazines this year, it's all online now.
They probably stock Playgirl too.
That's because Playgirl is more honest material and is of a higher literary caliber.
Whatever happened to conservatives like the guy who used to narrate the introduction to Masterpiece Theater?
So a new tag had to be created for topics that might elicit a "fear" of taking stupid people seriously.
Why not simpler tags like BDS, ODS, and now, PDS?
wv: "ating" how apropos
It's time for a picket fellow republicans.
Grab your Obama is a Nazi poster out of the attic and lets begin to work.
"Whatever happened to conservatives like the guy who used to narrate the introduction to Masterpiece Theater?"
They cut him up for spare parts.
And he was a communist. His real name was Kim Philby.
ricpic:
... why not just say that: stocking a book I've determined won't sell is not what I'm in business for? There's no arguing with that position; not if you believe in free enterprise.
If he'd said that I could say it was an principled position.
But of course, that's not what he said.
I hope reactions like his get plenty of play.
I wouldn't expect Pendragon to carry it. It's Pendragon! Even if they had it in stock, it would cost 3 times as much.
Everyone wants to be special in her or his own special way.
After all, we cannot flower as individuals unless we look, dress, behave, think, and respond just like everyone else in our group.
wv: bligh
I sense mutiny.
I think that bookstore owner is just a sexist pig, afraid of strong and confident women.
(This could get to be fun.)
We're a small store and it would probably gross us all out. Some things you carry because of freedom of speech, but a book like that is just gross.
Can I interest you in some erotic scrimshaw?
"At Borders bookstore in San Francisco Centre, a Chronicle reporter stood watch over two small stacks of the Palin book near the front doors. In a 25-minute period, only one person bought a copy."
Serious journalism at work!
"Some things you carry because of freedom of speech, but a book like that is just gross."
Clearly this Serious Lefty Thinker has a sound grasp of what freedom of speech means.
He would not let "thinking people" think for themselves?
Why not simpler tags like BDS, ODS, and now, PDS?
Heh. You wish, Chicklet!
I mean, I know it must seem like a badge of honor to believe that your candidate can inspire outrage, contempt, mental illness and genital herpes. But so little surprises anyone outside of the bubble when it comes to how ridiculous a hero the hard-right will choose to worship that the word "derangement" is really not an accurate description. By now, a mild tilt of the eyebrow is pretty much all you're going to get. Although after a while it might lead to the taste of puke in one's mouth. But derangement? Not so much.
And he's scared of Palin, never forget that.
He might be, garage. Let's keep an open mind here.
He would not let "thinking people" think for themselves?
If he's managing a modest-sized bookstore he needs to be concerned about inventory carrying costs and inventory turnover. If his regular clientele is unlikely to buy the book he'd be better off saving space for the posthumous Crichton book that's coming out next week.
The only thing to fear when it comes to Palin is the possibility that you might knock up her daughter at age nineteen and then be treated like persona non grata despite participating in the miraculous act of bringing life into this world and actually wanting to help care for it.
And that's a very scary thing. Especially coming from someone who talks the Republican line.
No, Ritmo, Palin's book is chick lit, not chicklet.
[Both Beth and Professor Althouse will be pouncing in 3-2-1 ...]
@MUL
No, I think derangement is a perfect description. Or do you think the San Fransisco Chronicle regularly dispatches its reporters to watch a small pile of books so it can report on whether anyone buys them?
"At Borders bookstore in San Francisco Centre, a Chronicle reporter stood watch over two small stacks of the Palin book near the front doors. In a 25-minute period, only one person bought a copy."
Seeing as how unimportant this book is, I bet for more important books they commit a whole team of journalists to standing around watching piles of books. I hear 10 San Fransisco Chronicles reporters watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' at Borders around the clock to report on sales.
ROFL.
@Ritmo, if I knocked up any teenager the last sounds I would hear would be my wife asking how to eject the clip and where I keep the second one.
Two nations, irreconcilable. Palin isn't touring New York or L.A., either. The national mitosis accelerates.
As a book it's about as unimportant as an issue of Highlights magazine.
As a piece of propaganda, it's much more important. And that's exactly what you pomocons are responding to.
Hell, no one's even talking about what's in the book. Just the fact that she ghost-wrote one. A year or so after not being able to name a single one of the compendium of newspapers she reads.
Image really is that much more important than reality to you guys. And that's worth reporting on.
wv: theroule
"And he's scared of Palin, never forget that"
I can't tell you how many of my lefty friends and acquaintances shuddered like a hound passing a peach pit when they spoke of the idea of SP just a heartbeat from the presidency a little more than a year ago.
They seemed rather fearful to me.
Hey, I'm a Palin fan, but I do believe that beth has this issue about right.
That said, I won't be reading the book, mainly because I've already caught the synopsis pretty much everywhere, and modern biographies often bore me frankly.
Except the recent autobiographies of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. THOSE were both fascinating.
I am going to every bookstore in Cambridge Mass and purchasing the book.
I will have an undercover camera under my burberry coat. Just to show the discrimination and hatred I encountered.
I will document this and we can all be exasperated about it.
thank you and good day fellow republicans.
It is not a pretty assignment but one that needs to be uncovered and disemminated.
Yes Mike. Murder, violence and disposing of your son-in-law. Very rational positions. Very much a way of keeping in line with the Republican hypocrites who bashed policies that supposedly led to broken African American families, decried the marginalization of men and of fathers in society, and pandered to the trashiest of white trash attitudes toward race-relations.
Keep the faith, man. Violence is very in. Killing family - that's a splendid platform. I suggest you raise it at the next RNC meeting. Please? Anything less would make Sarah Palin look less formidable
On second thought, I think Althouse is being nuanced here. "Palinophobia" is not full-blown PDS, and perhaps we should reserve the latter term for when she ultimately is elected (or at least runs for) POTUS.
shuddered like a hound passing a peach pit
My new phrase of the week. Can't wait to find a way to work it into conversation at a birthday party the Mrs. and I will be attending tonight.
Thanks!
So many of my lefty friends are scared to death of Palin.
Also, though, interestingly enough, they are totally disappointed in Obama.
And regret voting for him, natch.
Is there even a way to stop Titus from dissemenating?
I don't know about Borders. For years people have complained about conservative books not being stocked at Borders or hidden if they do bother to stock them.
Consequently, it is no surprise that Borders has been teetering on bankruptcy for a while now. Everyone is going to Amazon instead.
That's not necessarily proof of anything. Amazon is eating everyone's lunch. Is Barnes & Noble doing any better?
I just went to my local Starbucks to chill after a long long day. I had my Palin book on my lap, with the cover pointing to the street.
To my (slight) disappointment, though I did catch people glancing at the cover in my hands whenever I looked up to take a sip of my latte, not one person made one snarky comment in the very socialy liberal area where I live.
Dang.
Cheers,
Victoria
One of my friends who is a blue dog democrat said it was the biggest mistake in his life voting for Obama and he no longer is able to sleep and is contemplating suicide. That is how serious is has become.
Is Barnes & Noble doing any better?
B&N just came out with a Kindle competitor, the Nook. You don't see Borders even TRYING to compete these days, and I think that's the point.
The true tag that Althouse is trying to hit on would read "Fear of not finding Sarah Palin sufficiently interesting". But that takes up a lot of space and bandwidth. Not that that should matter to someone as focused on the full-time task of legitimizing Palin as Althouse is or anything.
What are you guys hearing from the libtards?
"shuddered like a hound passing a peach pit
My new phrase of the week. Can't wait to find a way to work it into conversation at a birthday party the Mrs. and I will be attending tonight.
Thanks!"
You are quite welcome. It's a favorite simile of mine that I picked up in the South. While redneck bashing is all the rage amongst the usual suspects I found Southerners to be great raconteurs with delightful turns of phrase.
And keenly intelligent when it came to sniffing out phoniness and elitism. Probably why liberals fear and loathe them.
How truly weird and totalitarian liberals are. They really do want to tell people what to do. In any case, the book is #1 on Amazon.
"He said he wanted to look at it but he also said he didn't really want to read it"
To stay soft as a baby's butt.
I see where Paul's coming from. I mean, why wouldn't Southern down-home folksiness lead the country in a revolution against phoniness and elitism? Isn't that what happened in 1860? And 1968? And... whatever.
That's a true revolution you're leading us on, Paul. Have you come up with any intriguing battle cries this time?
wv: worgy.
A word orgy is something that Palin avoided by smartly hiring a ghost-writer. Instead she got a pulp orgy.
How truly weird and totalitarian liberals are. They really do want to tell people what to do. In any case, the book is #1 on Amazon.
You know, lucid, I don't know. Like Beth, I feel that smaller bookstores have to judge their clientele's tastes to survive. If they have niche markets, sometimes they can get away with not carrying more popular fare.
The problem arises with the attitude not the business model they have.
The bookstore clerks all but called those who wish to read Palin's book deranged or ignorant. They, in turn, are thinking folk.
I personally would never patronise a bookstore whose clerks proudly bellowed at journalists, "Oh hell no, we won't carry Audacity of Hope! It's only for traitors and commies."
Never mind that I'm sure someone, somewhere in the bookselling universe probably made that decision based on that exact opinion.
_I_ would never give such dolts my custom.
But you just don't get that kind of reaction from too many liberals and their establishments when it's the opposite case. Au contraire, they pat themselves on their backs for being dismissive and judgemental.
Cheers,
Victoria
Pendragon... Hey, I shop there. Every year after the New Year they have a big calendar sell and we buy a few.
Look, there are some people who are opposed to Obama talking to students during class hours about working hard. There are people in Republican areas that would just as soon burn a book written by Obama.
And so there are stupid people all over.
I live in a very liberal area and the bookstores have her books stacked up. And, funny, they STAY stacked up - because few in these parts are buying it. Why make her a victim? Just put them out to gather dust and then move them over to the remainder shelves in a few months along with the Sean Hannity books.
Flexo said...
I don't know about Borders. For years people have complained about conservative books not being stocked at Borders or hidden if they do bother to stock them.
I think it depends on the store. Here in my neck of the woods (NE OH), books over the spectrum (any spectrum you like) are carried.
Consider the reverse - refusing to carry "Earth in the Balance", "It Takes a Village", and, especially (gasp!!), "Dreams of My Father".
Can you imagine the screams, the picketing, the film at 11?
This isn't about money, it's about ideology. Carrying ten copies wouldn't break them.
This jerk is afraid some lefty will pick up the book and find out he agrees with it. That's why the "gross" ones were burned in Germany in 1933. After all, we can't allow people to really think.
Can we???
I disagree with those that said (or agreed) that small business owners need to know their customer base in order to stay in business... at least how it applies to independent bookstores.
This is the Robert Mugabe theory of independent book store management.
If something doesn't work... do it MORE.
Independent book stores aren't struggling because they are *better* at serving their customers. They really and truly suck at it, but this won't sink in for anything and I had my fill of being guilted over not "supporting" my local independent a long time ago.
Yes, the little bookstore in Oakland is completely correct that none of their customers want the book. Anyone who might have wanted the book learned a long long time ago not to darken their door. This isn't serving their customers... it's limiting their customers.
My "local" isn't horrible this way and isn't a hole in the wall at all but a huge store. But walking through the door is certainly intimidating to someone who isn't left leaning. My biggest beef with them, and the reason I feel not a single pang over their struggles to compete with the "big box" stores is this: They carry almost no romances.
It doesn't matter to me that I'm usually in the SF section and not looking for a romance anyway, but considering the overwhelming dominance that romance holds over publishing the decision made not to carry more than a handful suggests that there is something influencing their *business* decisions other than making money.
So if they aren't making enough money, I don't feel like it's my fault for abandoning them in favor of Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Inspired by Brazilian Rhythm, I'm going to stop by Borders on the way home now and pick up a copy of Going Rogue. I may not get around to reading it until later next week, but I want a copy handy for any discussions that may happen between now and then.
Palin's (ghost-written) book can barely manage to make 3 & 1/2 stars on Amazon. It's being bought due to hype and controversy and the spectacle of Palin-ism. Dreams from My Father, OTOH, has 4 & 1/2 stars, and it's been out quite a while longer, which usually mitigates a book's critical success. It's a well-written work and, and, - what's that other word? - Oh right! Thought-provoking! That quality you right-tards love to bash while complaining that Palin's not receiving sufficient due for being all Mrs. Smarty Pants and intelligent-y and all.
And BTW, communism is actually a political philosophy. You might hate to hear it, decry it all you want, but there is historical and intellectual value to selling books written by communists. At the Barnes and Noble they even have Mein Kampf. It's in the history section, but it's there. A few copies at least - which does surprise me. But the fact that at least one is on the shelves doesn't and shouldn't.
Once you guys figure out whether you're for or against intelligence then you can resume your protest against The Liberal War on Sarah Palin's Pristine Image.
Go pick up that copy, Chicklet. Let me know if it raises the quality of your pro-Palin advocacy when you go toe-to-toe with the only other pomocon who's bothered to read it, and still panned the (not quite) author: Ann Althouse.
I only read science fiction.
That's why I enjoy Al Gore's book so much fun.
Al is my favorite failded canidates author.
Imagine how much fat they could suck out of him!
It would be enough to heat all of the East Coast.
We watched a PBS special on the early days (1954-55) of Elvis Presley. The wild popularity of Elvis coming from young people and the hate coming from the religious folks all coming at him at once and keeping his cool thru the ups and downs made me think of the Palin Wave going around today. Yes, some of you will hate me for saying that, but they both represent a new emerging wave that people who liked the older ways of doing things hated him for it then and hate her for it now. Today at Costco it was not in stock at the book tables, which was a disappointment, but then at checkout we found a large two tables stacked with hundreds of the Palin Book. Never saw that before.
It's the way to market the excess copies that they might have more trouble selling otherwise, TG. Kind of like the way they choose the location for where to place The National Enquirer. Check-out lines are the last bastion of hope for a bad product.
Although the Sarah as Elvis phenomenon does sound like a nice pick-me-up before a future persona that you'd want to avoid becoming all bloated and drugged-up. Maybe if she goes from a uproariously folksy to Rhinestones and just stays in that stage for a while. A Vegas-style Alaskan might be just the thing.
Here in the buckle of the Bible belt, I asked the dude at the B&N if they'd sold any copies of this. He said "a few." The shelf was full, and no one was looking at it while I was there.
The religious bookstore (owned by a fundamentalist, very conservative friend) won't stock it at all because they disapprove of Bristol's unwed pregnancy... go figure.
"At Borders bookstore in San Francisco Centre, a Chronicle reporter stood watch over two small stacks of the Palin book near the front doors. In a 25-minute period, only one person bought a copy."
Can journalists do simple arithmetic? That particular Borders is open an average of 13 hours per day. If they sell one copy of the book every 25 minutes and don't run out of copies, that's 31 copies a day, 218 a week. Sounds like a best-seller to me. It would surely be enough to put the book in the top 10 any day of the week, and probably makes it the best seller of the day most days. Obviously a new Harry Potter would sell a lot more copies than that, but 31 copies in one day is not bad.
Of course, we don't know that it sold that well the rest of the day. However, it probably did sell better when buyers weren't deterred by seeing an obvious weirdo hovering over the stacks keeping an eye on anyone who came near them.
The religious bookstore (owned by a fundamentalist, very conservative friend) won't stock it at all because they disapprove of Bristol's unwed pregnancy... go figure.
Well so does Sarah Palin herself, apparently. She just manages to take it out on the paren she wasn't responsible for raising or preventing early, unplanned pregnancies.
I just called a large store in Berkeley: moesbooks.com
They said they aren't selling it; the lady who answered the phone and who wouldn't give her name said it was because it's a "dangerous" book and she didn't want to give her any money.
Now, if any Palin supporters would like to do something that's actually important, here's a list those who've smeared her. On your site, discuss one of those people listed, and link their name to the corresponding post on my site.
Wow, MUL has gone completely insane.
He's written 12 of the 82 messages so far—not quite 15%—to tell us that those who believe Palin inspires outrage and contempt on the left are deluded.
PDS, indeed.
Lol. Maybe you and Michelle Goldberg should hook up, M.U.L. You two sound like a match made in heaven. Imagine the passionate nuance! The thought-provoking romance! Why, the radiant insecurity-disguised-as-self-righteous smugness from the resulting union would shine with the light of a thousand suns!
The religious bookstore...
Does the religious bookstore carry other political autobiographies?
Ritmo...Palin is an american original. Her book will not inspire an educated philosopher any more than the Americans in 1830s inspired De Toqueville. We are only a curiosity. If you only judge by bookshelf space at a Barnes & Noble, you find many shelves of Witchcraft books, like Hitler's favorite author, Madame Blavatski, and many books on how to do Magic, Tarot, Astrology and real spells. I hope that is not enough to get you to read them. I would just go with the flow on Sarah Palin. Her time and place seems to be now; and we all get to watch her assent and eventually the end of her time in leadership. Have you ever seen the movie "Patton" based upon another American originals career? Some truly strange and wonderful Americans seem to arise at critical moments and contribute powerfully to America's destiny in the world.
"Check-out lines are the last bastion of hope for a bad product."
One of the independent booksellers I visit has had a stack of "The Audacity of Hope" near the register for almost 2 years.
He's audaciously hoping he'll sell them. There's also a stack on the still-lingering table of anti-Bush books. I suggested he start selling them by the pound.
If Palin is like Elvis as Obama is like Milli Vanilli.
I just can't decide if he is Milli or Vanilli.
Wait, maybe he is half-vanilli?
Ritmo...I like you, and as your friend I must warn you about attacking Elvis. Go after Palin with all you've got, but you only endanger your own reputation when you dispise The King.
"Thinking people"
Reminds me of a line awhile ago, where some leftist pinhead was running around saying Palin was not just dumb, but anti idea.
There's a subset of leftist... not all by any means... that really believe that only they think, and only they have ideas. And if you are against them, you really are against the very act of thinking.
In the mid-80s I was in the publishing industry, covering Berkeley and Oakland among other places. It was in 1984 in a bookstore in Berkeley that I first heard the phrase "politically correct." In the 25 years since that area has only grown more parochial and narrow-minded, and less significant.
Audacity of Hope is nowhere near as good as Dreams from my Father. It even got less stars on Amazon.
Audacity of Hope is Obama's Going Rouge.
Seriously, that one was known to be Obama's political piece of marketing. The difference is that Obama's life was actually interesting to people, and that's what he wrote about with the better book. If Palin's life even is interesting, she wouldn't know how to convey that and wouldn't know how to separate that from her political "superstardom".
So in other words, big difference.
And that Michelle chick was cute and seemed interesting. Would our suns be like George Bush's "thousand points of light", only brighter?
Come on, Palladian. Don't be so insecure.
The King's fine. And so is Palin - in her own way and far away from the Oval Office. Why can't I be honest about that? How is that mean? A good performer should have done less quaaludes and chicken-fried steak. And a nice little hockey mom from up north should keep her over-protective instincts far from an open democracy.
You can't confuse criticism for not caring.
Did I just spell Going Rougue as Going Rouge? I swear that was a typo and not a Freudian slip.
I almost just did it again. Must be my lack of familiarity with Republican conceptions of mischief and roguery.
@Big Mike - How do you eject a clip? I know how to eject a magazine....
Careful, people will think you are a liberal - your 1911 will click when empty, your revolver will hold 13 rounds, etc...
-XC
"The job of a book buyer is to be something of a psychic."
That's all you need to know about the San Francisco Bay Area. Well, that, and this and this and this.
Other than that, great town.
Ritmo...I read some of your earlier comments and learned a new word..Pomocon. Thanks for the continuing education. Are you a visiting left coast Scholar or a NYC resident alien. My Sherlock Holmes antenna are sensing a very studious anthropological attitude towards the unfathomable American colossus we feel so at home in.
Well, it is a TERRIBLE book, take a gander at this from the first page:
"The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle."
Wow, what crap! Call Snoopy!
Oh, wait, sorry, that is from "Dreams from my Father" by BHO. (Or Ayers, for you Shakespeare fans.)
-XC
wv = dingle. No, really.
They seemed rather fearful to me
And you weren't???
Go pick up that copy, Chicklet.
Done! It's already 30% off at Barnes and Noble: $20 and change. I know it's available cheaper online (in fact I had pre-ordered it using Althouse's link through Amazon but I canceled when they emailed that delivery would be late).
Amusing anecdote; The clerk shot me a nervous look and asked me if I needed a bag for my purchase rather than the customary "Would you like a bag". Of course I refused to conceal & carry. But what a nuanced clerk!
re: the bag - You must be in that unfathomable part of the colossus that TG studies with the perplexity of an anthropologist. ;-)
PoMoCon: Post Modern Conservative
I'm just seeing that for the first time. Nicely done MUL! Gives it that certain "German" twist eh? GeStaPo, KriPo and Stasi, and my personal favorite: SchniPo!
Palin's (ghost-written) book can barely manage to make 3 & 1/2 stars on Amazon. It's being bought due to hype and controversy and the spectacle of Palin-ism. Dreams from My Father, OTOH, has 4 & 1/2 stars, and it's been out quite a while longer, which usually mitigates a book's critical success.
Don't forget DREAMS FROM MY FATHER was ghostwritten too.
Also don't forget, its 1st edition sold only about 10,000 copies, sales which did not earn out the advance and which Obama himself described in the preface to the 2004 edition as "underwhelming."
"The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle."
Uh...
That really is just as bad as blue arcing skies that kick you.
"They seemed rather fearful to me
And you weren't???"
Hell yeah!!
Of the words President Barack Hussein Obama.
And boy were my fears justified..........
@Expat, yes, of course it's a magazine. Brain fart.
I don't get the allusion to Eastern European secret police forces, Chicklet. And as much as I might like to, I can't claim credit for "postmodern conservative". Someone who actually considers himself a pomocon deserves that. Or the blame. But I'm glad to bring it to your attention here.
I think the pomocons are the bridge between your (plural) conservative fascination with modern culture and the thinking conservatism that once was, and may no longer be. Unless guys like Poulos can help it.
@Ritmo, concerning your comment at 7:46. I think you need to go back and reread my 7:40 post. Carefully.
Perhaps English is not your primary language and you are incapable of nuance.
Or perhaps you just need to get down off your high horse and grow a sense of humor. Life's too short.
Great quote by a pomocon on the threat posed to pomocons:
A word about Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck is the worst. But why? Not so much because of who he distrusts or why. From where I’m standing, Beck is so awful because he theatrically combines and conflates performances of ultimate sincerity with performances of ultimate sarcasm. I think this is a telltale sign of a soul disordered by a confusion of love, power, and resentment. It becomes impossible, in such a person, to tell quite where their selfless solidarity, their egotism, and their hatred borne of weakness begin or end.
And the titillating quality of this unstable charisma is precisely what they latch onto and exploit to become less a famous person than a famous happening. Their individual being becomes incidental to the phenomenon they represent. They actually corrode or dissolve their own identity in order to experience some hugeness that seems impossible to experience as a normal, integral human being. Any actual pomocon looks on that kind of allure as troublesome and dangerous, and the kind of personin thrall to it as no pomocon.
There. Now I feel like Pogo.
I've been in Pendragon a few times. Not exactly a conservative hangout. And with these attitudes, it's not going to become one. If you happen to be located on the fringe of Berkeley (like Pendragon) or in Berkeley proper (like Moe's), I imagine you can't get away with that. You might even drum up a few extra sales from open-minded people rushing proudly to a store that won't stock Palin's book. If you're an independent bookseller with a similar attitude and your demographic isn't Berkeley, though, then you've got it coming if the Barnes and Noble down the street drives you out of business.
Oh sh*t. Take out that "Life is too short" from my previous post. Ritmo will think it's another veiled threat from one of those deranged Republicans who clings to his guns and religion.
And boy were my fears justified.........
So how has the Obama presidency effected you personally so far? Any specific liberties taken away, new taxes, etc ? Specifics, if possible.
I noticed that quirk shortly after I posted... which is why I didn't feel out of sorts for interpreting it differently. Levi Johnston wasn't married to some other woman when he knocked up Corn Cob Palin. To the extent that you thought their situation should have been a violent one, I'm assuming you meant to talk about what the father of some kid would feel like doing to the boyfriend who made her an unwed 19-year old mother. Or maybe I know more basic facts about Palin than you do? Despite my flimsy grasp of English? (Which Palin never gets criticized for by anyone here, incidentally).
wv: molyelk.
Someone who hunts elk while listening to Motley Crue.
anybody up for a good old fashion bon-fire?
We work off an approved list here...Palin..not here. Next.
Big Mike - sometimes a little snark is called for. I've been fairly patient through several days now of threads full of the silliest stuff. Palin inspires a lot of faux martyrdom.
And some left-leaning people really do get pretty in-your-face to the point where violence is threatened.
Yeah, I know. The reports of beatings and book burnings outside Barnes and Nobles around the country are terrifying.
So how has the Obama presidency effected you personally so far? Any specific liberties taken away, new taxes, etc ? Specifics, if possible.
I'm glad you asked GM: Link. I have yet to find anyone who will assure me that my present healthcare plan will not be disqualified under ObamaCare. That still pisses the hell out of me.
So yeah. Is that specific enough?
the clerks they interviwed sound like stuck-up twerps.
Indeed. Lots of twerps out there in the world.
Obviously I'm just catching up here .. Chase, I want to get the Julie Andrews bio. Thanks for the reminder!
C.L.
Not really. No link to the House or Senate draft of a bill, what section, or what the language is. I asked for something specific, not "I heard this might happen if..." Don't sweat it though, if ObamaCare forced you into that postion I would right there with you.
"So how has the Obama presidency effected you personally so far? Any specific liberties taken away, new taxes, etc ? Specifics, if possible."
So far there's been a reduction in gigs due to people holding on to their money due to uncertainty over the perceived anti-business positions of the administration. Work was definitely more plentiful in the Bush years.
But the real damage is still in the pipeline with tax increases, deathcare, the dollars decline, inflation, further increases in unemployment leading to more government debt, losing the Afghan war and weakened national security. Hell, President Jesus isn't even in a full year yet and we're listing dangerously to port while the Dems are busy punching holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water out. Give 'em time me boyo. They'll sink the whole fucking ship if they get their way. We're just in the prologue now, but even still my household is taking an economic hit.
C.L.
Not really. No link to the House or Senate draft of a bill, what section, or what the language is. I asked for something specific, not "I heard this might happen if..." Don't sweat it though, if ObamaCare forced you into that postion I would right there with you.
HDHPs are a pretty intriguing idea, as are the HSAs they're tied to, medical "boutique" practices, and whatever other attempt at innovation the health care market claims to be hard at work on.
Today was the deadline for my enrollment. The employer only offered a POS and an HDHP-HSA. But the HSA is self-funded or deducted from your paycheck. Funny that the price differential was a twelve dollar lower premium. I figure that at the end of 26 pay periods (one year), I should have a bit more in my account than a measly $300 for out-of-pocket health expenditures. Wouldn't you?
Anyway, I said screw it. In the past I thought these were good ideas. And I'm still sympathetic to health economists who claim that Americans aren't sufficiently incentivized to take care of their own damn, lazy selves. But this innovation, at least, just didn't seem to cut it.
In the meantime, assuming your HSAs looking like a nice, fat Thanksgiving turkey by now, cut your losses and withdraw - or argue that the government should not penalize you for doing so before age 65 or whatever. Assuming they were the panacea they were touted as, you should probably have a hefty chunk of change in there by now to invest elsewhere.
amba, why would Palin tour LA or NY? That's not her audience. This is not surprising, or even regretful.
So garage how did the Bush years adversely affect you other than to cause you to lose your mind?
"...the thinking conservatism that once was, and may no longer be."
Conservatives still think.
What has changed is that those various ideas aren't seen anymore as evidence of our dynamic culture, of vibrance and diversity of thought... but as dangerous things that have to be suppressed by isolation and vilification.
A decade ago liberal morality loved the notion of free speech and felt safe declaring that no matter how vehemently she disagreed the moral liberal would defend the free speech of others, even with her life.
Oh sure, the quote was hyperbole, but the sentiment was sincere.
Now it's all... "But freedom of speech doesn't *apply* to anything offensive." And all that is necessary is to *assert* that the speech you don't like is offensive.
It's very easy to say that conservatives don't have ideas or that conservative thought is something that has passed when the virtue of remaining pure by *not hearing it* has become the new liberal morality.
Conservatives may be a distinct minority in the City, and running amok in Berkeley... but this is Oakland... it's not even Albany or El Cerrito. If the people living there or those selling books there don't *see* the conservatives around them to the extent that they can be as bigoted toward those not in their own group... it's absolutely a deliberate isolation and a deliberate ignorance.
And it's not a virtue.
Funny that the price differential was a twelve dollar lower premium.
That sounds screwy to me. Two years ago I was enrolled in a $7,320/yr PPO ($305/pay period) plan for a family of four. I switched to a $1,200/yr plan ($50/pay period). I started putting the difference each month into an HSA that rolls over every year, so there was no "savings" per month. The difference though is that I am no longer putting that difference into what I regard as a blackhole.
Would I be in this sort of plan if I had pre-existing? Probably not. And yes, we do have quite an egg built up. And no, I'm not switching out.
cut your losses and withdraw
Why step backwards?
Honestly, nothing you're saying makes any sense, Synova.
I'm only responding because I like you. Otherwise, I thought this thread was fun and interesting enough that I wouldn't have bothered.
Pointing out that someone has stupid things to say is not an abridgment of his "free speech". Get it right. I am absolutely sick of hearing this preposterous, train-wreck of an accusation.
We're not talking about "ideas". Pundits, especially liberal pundits are. And then they speak of conservatives not having any. That's fine. But I'm not a politician. I don't care about the political goodies you market as "ideas". I care about the thought behind them. As do Douthat, Salam, Frum, Brooks, Parker, Sullivan and the other conservatives who maintain some neural activity while perched atop the dying embers of the conservative movement. We're talking about thought. Thought precedes ideas and thought requires an acknowledgment of reality as something as important, if not moreso, than image. So far the Palinites fail that test. And so does their leader. As do her followers/promoters: Kristol, Buchanan, NRO and the rest of that gang.
And Oakland is really that much more conservative than the rest of NorCo? Ummmmm okay....
RT: Garage's question was whether the Obama Administration has affected me. I gave a very specific answer of a realistic threat to my family's well being.
But what a nuanced clerk!
Oh, yeah, chickenlittle. It's the CLERK who's "nuanced."
I don't know who von Hayek is, but since it was offered in such a derogatory manner, didn't bother to Google it. Does von Hayek have a bus, and does it stay past half-time?
@GM You're being evasive. It's not like I just threw that out there. I have queried my HR department, my Congressman Darrel Issa, as well as following up here on Althouse. It's all bad news so far.
You see, the problem is that it's all about self-reliance rather than paying into the "system".
You don't have to, man. If your plan is that much better than the one I was offered I probably wouldn't either. Collecting money on it while you're young and healthy, so that you can spend it once you're old and diseased, is precisely the point. So if you can continue to collect at a nice rate, go ahead. I've only become skeptical because I think the push for more public and social involvement is gaining enough momentum and because even in socialist countries where the move to push the balance back has led to some private innovations in delivery of care or funding, these things haven't seemed to have caught on either. But what do I know? I think the health care policy debates become hazier and more opaque the more I hear about them. Ultimately a fix that addresses quality and innovation and affordability and accessibility will be worked out, and hopefully it accounts for the continued change that we can keep expecting within health care. But I don't pretend to accurately predict how all those details will shape up. For the foreseeable future its up to the bureauracrats and (hopefully) intelligent pols so I'll read about what's passed once it's passed and criticize or praise it on the merits revealed by the debates that inevitably take shape upon passage, implementation, and evaluation.
The reports of beatings and book burnings outside Barnes and Nobles around the country are terrifying.
Not at B&N, Beth, but how about at a health care reform protest?
Free speech is only protected when the Left agrees with what you're saying.
I dunno, Joan. Some rich capitalist invoked his copyright privileges and won't let us see the horrible instance of mass, legally condoned liberal brutality alleged by PowerLine.
I only read science fiction.
Not the least bit surprising from someone named Adele Mundy (presumably, the Mundy of Chatsworth).
But, then again, I primarily read sci/fi and fantasy away from work too, but may end up reading Going Rogue, or at least buying it, to support the cause.
I spend a lot of time at airports and in the air these days, and that genre is the most enjoyable for such traveling.
Which brings me to Borders. I drive by one on the way through Carson City on my way to the Reno Airport, and stop there whenever I have enough time on my way out of town to try to pick something up for the trip. They pushed advanced purchases of Palin's book hard for the last month or so at the cash register,and apparently sold a huge number of copies. I think they had also planned on being open at midnight, or something like that, for all those who had advance purchased the book to pick them up. This all seemed more intense than the last Harry Potter book at that book store. As you can probably guess, northern Nevada is not really Obama country, nor, really Harry Reid country either.
My point though is that Borders is really not as bad as is commonly portrayed as being politically biased to the left. Rather, just like the bookstore in CA, they are in business to make money, and if they do it selling leftist books in leftist parts of the country, that is fine with them, and if they do it selling rightward leaning books in the Redder parts of the country, that seems fine too with them.
I don't know who von Hayek is, but since it was offered in such a derogatory manner, didn't bother to Google it. Does von Hayek have a bus, and does it stay past half-time?
Friedrich von Hayek won the Nobel prize in economics in 1974, and is best known for "The Road to Serfdom", written mostly during WWII. It looked at the various forms of socialism at the time: Stalinist Russian Communism, Italian Fascism, and German Nazism, and showed that their totalitarianism was a direct result of their socialism.
$305 per period to $50 is indeed a huge savings - even if they're just going into a different kind of an account that you can nevertheless access. Go with it. I'd be pretty interested under those conditions as well.
Joan, do you really want to assert that there aren't any incidences of violent right-wingers beating people they disagree with? Get real.
Synova, Oakland is as "liberal" as Beserkely. Trust me. Pendragon is on College Avenue right on the border.
Now there are conservatives everywhere in the Bay Area. Check out the comments at SF Gate. But we keep our heads down and cars free of bumperstickers to avoid the overt hostility and vandalism at the hands of our "liberals".
However in my little idyllic town of Clayton it's probably at least 50-50...I fly the flag at my house without worrying about it. 35 minutes to the west anchorage of the Bay Bridge barring traffic.
And a 4000 foot mountain pedaling distance on my mountain bike from my house.
That's why people still want to live here.
I live in a conservative state, in a city that is mostly liberal. I have had bumper stickers removed from my car during elections - I went through several "No Dukes" stickers (yes, a dumb play on No Nukes) during the governor's race where David Duke came perilously close to winning. By the way, I have no problem crediting mainstream Republicans in our metro area for stepping up and campaigning FOR Edwin Edwards against Duke. The recently deceased, Republican former Gov. Dave Treen led that effort.
I got pulled over by a trooper during that election; it turns out I hadn't violated any laws, he just wanted to question me about my bumper sticker. What's wrong with Duke? he wanted to know. That was intimidation, pure and simple.
So when I hear people claim that ONLY conservatives face challenges to their free speech or ONLY liberals ever intimidate or act rudely in the public sphere, I call bullshit. Total fucking bullshit. I doubt anyone thinks they're lying here. But a willing naivete isn't much better.
We're not worried about bumper stickers being removed! We're worried about keying, broken windows and slashed tires. Meanwhile cars festooned with leftwing nonsense park anywhere with impunity.
Sure there's violence and intimidation on both sides but if anyone thinks it's as prevalent on the right they're delusional.
Calling bullshit.
Them damned liberals are stomping on Free Speech again. Fortunately, some other good Americans will are gathering to protest. I hope the liberals don't hurt them.
This story just popped up on the local news. Kind of a funny coincidence.
"I got pulled over by a trooper during that election; it turns out I hadn't violated any laws, he just wanted to question me about my bumper sticker. What's wrong with Duke? he wanted to know. That was intimidation, pure and simple."
Well, if we're calling bullshit...
If it had happened to me, it'd now take me a couple minutes at most to find the report I had filed against the pro-Duke police officer.
Could you post that online for us, Beth? Feel free to blank out your personal information.
Thanks in advance.
Bullshit, as you said.
When I say bullshit, J, I am very clear: I'm not saying anyone is lying. I'm saying they're seeing what they want to see.
You have no grounds to call me a liar.
No, J, I didn't file a report. Go play lawyer with someone else. I don't know you, and I don't care what you believe. Enjoy living in your little self-righteous bubble.
So, a white supremacist cop pulled you over to politically intimidate you and you didn't file a report?
Okay. Whatever.
By the way, I'm not playing lawyer. If this hadn't been you lying on a blog, if it had instead been you lying in a public statement, then you'd actually meet a hostile attorney. In real life. So, lucky you.
No, I'm not lucky, J. But thanks for playing. Make of my experience what you will. I don't recognize you, so I assume you don't know me, either. I'll recognize you have no reason to trust me. You can continue on blissfully believing all is well in conservative world, and no one there ever draws outside the lines.
You do realize, Beth, that it's actually better for you, morally, that you're probably lying.
If you were the sort of person who would not report an intimidating, racist cop, that's worse than just making up this story.
So, you got that going for you.
Unless you're telling the truth. In that case, how can you live with yourself?
Okay, I'll play along.
Why didn't you act responsibly and file a report against this guy?
That's bad. It is. I'd report a racist cop trying to intimidate me. After all, I'd be kinda responsible for the acts he committed afterwards if I didn't.
J, you lack imagination. No, I didn't go to the same people who employ and work with him to report him. He was having some malicious fun, and while I didn't fear for my safety, it was intimidating. Maybe that was morally a flaw, but I am not going to second-guess my instincts now. That was a horrible period for our state. We had to choose either to vote for a guy we knew was dishonest - he's in the federal pen right now - or a Nazi.
Times were strange.
Beth, you see the question I'm posing, I assume.
Either it was something (which you implied) or it wasn't. If it was, you'd have then investigated far enough to know that you could have reported him to the AG office or the review or internal affairs office of his department.
Kinda gotta pick one. Either it wasn't that big a deal, or it was a pretty serious sin of omission on your part.
Maybe living in the South, I take a certain things for granted. J, Duke got 55 percent of the white vote in that race - the cop did an odd thing in pulling me over, but the encounter wasn't unusual, not the conversation itself. And it was weirdly funny, too; after asking me what I didn't like about Duke, he made his own comments why he thought Duke made sense to him and added "and I'm Jewish!" Okay, then. What can you say to that?
No, J. You're posing a false dilemma. I drove off happy to be safely on my way. That was a good outcome. I didn't mobilize an investigation, or retain a lawyer, or go to the office at the end of the Causeway, where this guy works with a small force of other guys a lot like himself and file a complaint, patrolling a 24-mile bridge that I have to drive occassionally. I went home.
The problem with your questions, J, is that you want me to say "oh, okay, it didn't happen." I can't do that. You are free to call me a liar. Go for it. It doesn't change anything for me.
The customers at that store are apparently not interested in Palin's book, so why should they stock it?
It's not like it's hard to find at other book stores. Althouse was, for some odd reason, afraid to walk into a Borders and buy it, even though Borders not only stocks the book, but has been heavily promoting it for weeks before its release.
BTW, my local Borders has a bunch of religious nutters on staff, and they have been quite weird to me about certain books I've purchased. When I bought Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion, the lady at the register actually started yapping at me about how bad a book it is and told me some religious freako radio program was gonna have a program debunking the book. She wrote the time and station on a slip of paper and put it inside the Dawkins book I was buying.
I mean, I thought it was funny, but it's pretty fucking nuts that I can't go into my local Borders and puchase a book by a great author like Richard Dawkins without being harrassed over it.
Religious nuts are the worst.
Any time I've ever bought a conservative book at a store employed by a bunch of liberals, they've never pulled the kind of crap those religious freaks at my local Borders have pulled on me. The worst I have to suffer from a lefty is a judgmental expression on the face. The religious nuts at my local Borders actually preach at customers.
Althouse was, for some odd reason, afraid to walk into a Borders and buy it
Not true, Loaf. She made a bit of fun of that; how could she actually be afraid, if she then went directly to her blog and wrote about it? Just a little stir of the vortex, Oaf.
Beth, okay, this is now weird and convoluted enough that it sounds fairly human to me (for better or worse, mainly worse). Still: this cop, I want his badge and license number; this civilian, I want to know why she isn't reporting it.
But, isn't this then also that much less a blunt object to strike against conservatives as well?
It's a rough and tumble world, LO. Full of preaching and sneering. We endure nonetheless.
There's something kind of funny about getting the stinkeye because of what you're reading. Surely that makes it all the more fun?
"You're posing a false dilemma."
Yeah, not really though.
I actually think it's pretty reprehensible for citizens to not report racist cops.
You don't, maybe. (I was more conciliatory earlier. But yeah, in all honesty, I think you're either lying or a pretty shitty citizen.)
Jesus, J, you don't always get what you want. Of course it sounds human. Being human is messy. You're correct, I should have gotten his badge number - surely it's a violation of his position to do what he did, which is the whole point of my using this as an example now. But as I said, I can't go back in time and second-guess myself. I can only imagine, because this is back in 1991, that my first reaction was relief that I wasn't getting a ticket. When he started talking about the sticker, and Duke, I was just stunned. This happened in the middle of a bridge; there are turn-arounds in a few places over the course of the 24 miles. It was in public, so I wasn't afraid, as I said. The idea that he would do this to amuse himself was upsetting, and one doesn't expect to converse with a traffic officer about anything personal or political - just hand over the license and insurance card. Things can be wrong, unsettling, and yet not become a major investigative affair.
Okay, then. I'm a shitty citizen. You are a paragon of conservative virtue. Go forth, good citizen, with head held high!
I do find your "racist cop" comment funny, though. Report him to whom? The other racist cops? Did you miss the part about 55 percent of the white vote? I was on their turf - that bridge connects the Northshore, where Duke lives, to Jefferson Parish on the Southshore, a district that he represented in our state legislature in the late 1980s. I got the hell out of Dodge and was glad of it.
"You are a paragon of conservative virtue."
Okay, that's where I call bullshit again. Once, I punched a puppy for being insufficiently patriotic. Then I shot him. Fifty times. 'Cause that's flaggish.
Binary, it's good for the machines. Not so much for the humans.
So you're saying you're not a paragon? I'm crushed. I wanted to believe in your power to slay dragons with nicely filed reports. Now the world makes no sense to me.
"Report him to whom?"
Ten minutes of research, pre-internet, would have given you a few worthwhile answers. C'mon, Beth, if you play dumb here it'll count against you with all youre other comments.
Who's playing dumb, J? That was a rhetorical question, answered immediately afterwards. I did not report him because I had no desire to engage with more cops. Deal with it. You're playing lawyer again.
You're mistaken if you think I have to prove something to you. Again, you don't have to believe me. It doesn't matter.
Beth, I shall stop lawyering you. With questions. Like lawyers do.
You're a liar or you are too meek/simple/friendly to take the most basic steps to report racist cops who "intimidate" you.
Beth's feisty tonight.
So when I hear people claim that ONLY conservatives face challenges to their free speech or ONLY liberals ever intimidate or act rudely in the public sphere...
Has that happened here? I certainly never said ONLY conservatives face challenges.
Joan, do you really want to assert that there aren't any incidences of violent right-wingers beating people they disagree with? Get real.
Throughout history? No, I won't make that assertion. Over health care reform? Yes, I will assert that there aren't any incidences of right-wingers beating people they disagree with, whereas there have been two well-documented assaults by left-wingers on people opposed to health care reform: Ken Gladney in St. Louis, and William Rice who's finger was bitten off in CA.
I was mistaken; the two latest beating victims in Florida were not protesting health care reform, they were protesting amnesty for illegal aliens. Huff Po has a description of the video and the surrounding events.
In all of these cases, it sounds to me as if the injured parties behaved at least boorishly if not worse, but that doesn't justify physical violence.
FWIW, I wouldn't have reported that cop who stopped you, either, but I still wish you'd stop constructing strawmen just so you can knock them down.
shuddered like a hound passing a peach pit
I heard this 20 years ago from a friend who died recently at 51. He got it from his dad, who was from backwoods Arkansas.
"I think that bookstore owner is just a sexist pig, afraid of strong and confident women."
Thread winner!
This is merely the phallic-centric hetero-normal establishment exerting their dominance to keep women in their place. They're taking over commerce so that women can be put back into burqas and forced from gainful employment as writers.
It's a liberal hate crime we're witnessing here.
Pendragon is one of three new/used book stores owned by the same person. The other two are in Berkeley. I go there fairly often, but buy rarely because even their used book prices are too high. I'm with Cathy though, I do like their calendar sales.
This is kinda funny from the company website:
Our fearless leader has since been the president of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association and has served on the board of the ABA’s American Booksellers For Free Expression.
"Calling bullshit."
Look Beth all we need to do is compare the reactions between the respective losers of the last two presidential elections to figure out which side is more likely to resort to violence and intimidation.
End of discussion.
Sometimes, it takes a village to write a book.
@beth - Lady, drop it. These pokers aren't trying to understand, they're trying to score points. Like with dirt in a house full of kids, learn to see it in the corner of your eye, not stop in it, and move along.
I love my home state (Our Lady of The Lake, class of 1963!) but people who haven't been there can't really understand how many contradictions live happily, side-by-side.
I remember trying to explain to people "up nawth" why we were having an election where it was important to vote for the crook and not the nazi.
-XC
Maybe he pulled you over because he thought you were cute Beth?
The political stuff was just a line.
I think I was in that Pendragon bookstore once. It’s in San Francisco right?
It smelled really bad.
Like patchouli oil and desperation.
The brave Dr. "J" is one reprehensible idiot.
According to him, intimidation can just never exist on a statewide level, in the South or otherwise. And voter loyalty to fucking David Duke wouldn't be so widespread as to corrupt the actions of a few too many police precincts and effectively make reporting individual officers a lost cause.
1990 Campaign for U.S. Senate:
Duke received 43.51 percent (607,391 votes) of the vote to Johnston's 53.93 percent (752,902 votes), and, according to exit polls, Duke received more than 60 percent of the white vote.
Despite repudiation by the Republican Party, Duke ran for Louisiana Governor in 1991. In the open primary, Duke was second to former governor Edwin Edwards in votes; thus, he faced Edwards in a runoff. In the initial round, Duke received 32% of the vote. Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer, who had switched from the Democratic to Republican parties during his term, came in third with 27% of the vote.
Edwards received 1,057,031 votes (61.2%). Duke's 671,009 votes represented 38.8% of the total. Duke claimed victory, saying: "I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote." Exit polls confirmed that he had.
Denial of the political implications of all this may be good enough for the empirical standards of the Limbaugh-worshiping Althouse, but not for anyone living in the real world.
No one has mentioned Bookshop Santa Cruz, which offers a complementary bag of Just Plain Nutz with every Palin purchase. Apparently back in the 90s, they sold a Limbaugh book by the pound, at the price of baloney, and provided a barf bag with every copy of a Newtian manifesto.
lone wacko -- does Moe's even sell new books? As I recall it's four floors of used books, with a basement full of remainders.
As such, Palin's book would get there soon enough.
Although Moe had strict requirements for what he would buy. I was there when he was alive, telling a disappointed patron, with a bag full to trade: No litcrit! No Sunset or Ortho How-to guides!
I've been a bit down on Amazon ever since it took three weeks for a book to arrive under free shipping. The package tracking data showed it going from pillar to post -- I think it spent time in each of thirteen states. It did not arrive in time for Christmas. I like to browse and buy.
The local independent bookshops in the Bay Area never kept much in the way of inventory. If you bought the lone copy of their book -- often heavily thumbed -- you felt you might be depriving someone who might really need it. Barnes and Noble arrived, with their own NYC orientation, providing three sections of Judaica for this massively Gentile region. Then Borders arrived, with shelves of hunting books never before seen in the Bay Area.
Monkeyboy said...
"We don't stock .. wouldn't buy it."
Acceptable
"We don't stock it because we're too cool and smart to be exposed to different opinions."
Mockable"
We don't stock it because this the book is just a pile of shit on paper"
Accurate
We don't stock it because anyone who buys this crap isn't someone I want in the store.
Realistic
Joan, violence is never justified in response to boorishness. We agree on this.
"Free speech is only protected when the Left agrees with what you're saying."
There's the "only" I'm responding to - among other statements here. Free speech is not only protected in that case, nor is it only attacked when it's something left disagrees with. That's no strawman - use something other than "only" and maybe you'd be right about a strawman.
Paul, you must be talking about the hired goons beating on the doors and screaming at the voting commissioners in Florida. But wait, they won.
Joan, there's been a strawman taking a beating in most of these Palin threads, with posts from folks just desperate for someone, anyone, liberal to sneer at or confront them while they're buying or reading the book.
Expat - I know Our Lady of the Lake - my friend's family worships there. She went to St. Scholastica, though. Go, Fighting Doves! Thanks for your comment - you get it.
Ritmo, he's not reprehensible, just dense and trollish.
"Paul, you must be talking about the hired goons beating on the doors and screaming at the voting commissioners in Florida. But wait, they won."
No. Learn to count to two please.
Are you one of those climate scientists, Paul, the ones who only want the data they approve of considered? Learn to count all the numbers, please. Not just the ones that come to the answer you predetermine.
I've been to Moe's a few times, and I too thought they were mostly a used book store. However, I asked whether that was the case and the same "dangerous" lady said they do sell new books too.
Here's a fun field trip I just day-dreamed about: surreptitously inserting fliers for "Rogue" in the middle of some of their books where finding the flier would cause the greatest shock.
Note: that's just a day dream; doing that might be breaking the law and I am not in any way suggesting that anyone do anything like that.
Correction on the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke#Political_campaigns
The last two elections had clear winners and losers. There were also reactions by the losers that stood in stark contrast to each other. Quit being a dissembling partisan hack (yeah right) and face the fact that your side is the one that can't take defeat like adults. Your side was the one in 2000 that tried to game the system and refused defeat also. Even when the NYT, Washington Post, and other mouthpieces of the Democrats couldn't find the votes or fraud to give the election to Gore.
Grow up.
Paul, your schtick is showing. You have no actual point to make, just general whining about sides. The more directly someone responds to you, the further you go from the original discussion.
I've learned quite from conservatives who post on this blog, and it's made me more open to critiquing liberal policies and seeing people as more than their political positions. But one thing I can't get past is the conservative whining, no matter the issue, that liberals are always more to blame for X.
I disagree with Beth's overarching point and I'm not sue how an 18-year-old point really supports it. (Nor how the KKK has anything do with limited government types; they were all about government mandating segregation.)
But, seriously, J, you've been an ass.
My God, what the hell happened in the last comments in this thread?
Beth, you seem to be conflating twerpish bookstore owners by comparing them to racist cops to prove a point that belligerence because of politics exist on both sides. Of course it does, but the comparison was crap.
I have no idea who J is, but s/he's tedious -- mind, I stopped reading after the third volley.
Cheers,
Victoria
I was thinking about Synova's point that bookstores which have a narrow business model like Pendragon are soon to be dinosaurs.
It's a good point, albeit I think there is a cultural element that is being lost.
Pendragon seems to specialise in all kinds of journals/diaries/calenders and the ilk. They also have rarely seen books. I wouldn't expect a place like that to stock a book like Palin's, because, (a) they are too specialised (b) they might alienate their clientele, which currently keeps them in business.
Is it bad business? Yes. It is smart business? I don't know actually.
For me, it would be much more telling or devastating if Amazon, Borders and B&N refused to carry Palin's book. And that is really not the case. If something like that were ever to happen, then I'd worry about the growing cultural narrowness in America.
Cheers,
Victoria
wv: Mingsob!! What Andrew Sullivan's does thinking of Sarah Palin's minge.
(That's really crude if you're British)
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