September 11, 2017

"Has the 'new normal' of the Trump age been causing you to take time out of your day to stare wistfully out a window, muttering audibly over a glass of wine?"

"Did you know you can support The Nation with that vino?"

This came in the email today:



Do you realize how unusual that is — advertising an alcohol beverage as a way to deal with unhappiness or any sort of problem? Can you think of any other time you've seen that? Normally, alcohol is advertised as aesthetically pleasing — delicious and beautifully packaged — or as an accompaniment to joyful activities. If the mood-altering power is referenced at all, it is in the context of making good times even better.

137 comments:

bleh said...

I am reminded of what Hillary said about drinking Chardonnay to cope with her loss.

David said...

"If the mood-altering power is referenced at all, it is in the context of making good times even better."

Is this any different? Wallowing in anger, sorrow and a sense of defeat over Trump seems to be an attractive position for a large percent of the population. They enjoy the wallow, meaning, perhaps, that Trump haters are pigs.

furious_a said...

"TO ALCOHOL! The cause of --and solution to -- all if life's problems!" -- Homer Simpson

TreeJoe said...

That's about the most pitiful "We're going out of business and we genuinely don't care about you - our customer" message I've ever seen.

Comanche Voter said...

I always take a stiff drink after glancing at a Nation magazine---I'd have to take two more to forget if I ever actually opened that rag. On the other hand now that Hillary will never be president, water is just fine and sufficient.

furious_a said...

The Nation Whine Club.

Mikec said...

During the 1950's, a comedian who had a weekly tV show, ended his show at signoff by saying "All you people who don't think money can buy happiness, go out and buy a fifth tonight!"

Actually it's still pretty funny. Do we have to explain to the younger generation what a fifth is or was?

tim in vermont said...

You sure liberals don't like country music?

Whiskey river take my mind
Don't let her memory torture me...

We all know who "she" is.

LordSomber said...

IOW: "Emmanuel Goldstein makes me want to drink Victory Gin."

rehajm said...

Drunken consent isn't really consent for The Nation to take your money.

MaxedOutMama said...

Hillary made it respectable with her comments?

If I were not reading your ad on this blog, I would not believe it! Bizarre on multiple levels and multiple axes. Almost surreal.

Earnest Prole said...

Upper- and lower-class people are honest to themselves and others that alcohol's primary purpose = liquid forget. It's the middle classes that need to hide behind euphemisms, hence the elaborate social constructs in advertising and serving customs. Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is a great primer for those who haven't yet noticed.

Henry said...

I wonder how many editorial passes it took before someone decided to write "day" instead of "breakfast".

Henry said...

TiV wrote: You sure liberals don't like country music?

Just think what they could do with "Tonight the bottle let me down."

Bay Area Guy said...

The Nation has been in mourning ever since the Berlin Wall fell.....

Hagar said...

Alcohol works on the self-control center in your brain so that your present feelings are exaggerated. If you are already feeling blue, things just look worse if you drink.

kevino said...

BDNYC beat me to it: Sec. Hillary Clinton on election loss: "I won’t lie, Chardonnay helped"

It's September 2017, and Hillary still isn't president. I'll drink to that!

walter said...

Like Skinny Girl wine, this is aimed at getting women to open up their..wallets.
Unlike the stigma beer drinking men can encounter, women drinking wine is hip.
I would rather a drinking game named Trumpquilla!

Anonymous said...

Hey, at least the alcoholic beverage they're going to be abusing (it's a dumb, philistine habit to drink as a response to unhappiness and frustration) is a nice glass of wine. If that lot at The Nation ever gets and retains serious power, we'll all be reduced to Victory Gin.

Michael K said...

Amusing. At least it works for Hillary.

Sorta.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Teh butt hurt party continues.

n.n said...

A nice glass of Chianti would complement their religious predilections.

Larry J said...

I don't drink very often. I've made it a firm policy that whenever I have the feeling of "Man, I could use a drink!" that I never consume alcohol. Alcohol is fine occasionally at social functions but I've known far too many people whose alcohol consumption has led to major problems.

Joe said...

Henry, perhaps the original copy read:

"Has the 'new normal' of the Trump age been causing you to sit up in bed and chug down some wine?"

Earnest Prole said...

it's a dumb, philistine habit to drink as a response to unhappiness and frustration

It's a dumb habit of all classes to drink as a response to unhappiness and frustration. What's philistine is to call it philistine.

tcrosse said...

Chardonnay ? I always figured Hillary as a MD 20/20 kind of gal.

Static Ping said...

I believe under their interpretation of Title IX, this inquiry qualifies as aggravated rape.

rehajm said...

Muttering. Heh.

Jupiter said...

Has Trump's election driven you to drink?

Anonymous said...

Larry J: I don't drink very often. I've made it a firm policy that whenever I have the feeling of "Man, I could use a drink!" that I never consume alcohol.

Wise move. I have instructed my children that the first rule of prudent alcohol use is "never drink when you are unhappy or depressed".

This has always been a very easy rule for me to follow. I love good wine, but I never have any desire for it when I'm not in a good mood.

(Grief and unhappiness are not the same thing. I definitely drink at wakes.)

Gahrie said...

Chardonnay ? I always figured Hillary as a MD 20/20 kind of gal.

Hey hey hey...don't be dissin' my Maddog!

mockturtle said...

This sounds like the sort of drivel I got in my email from Apple the day after the election. I told them what I thought of it and asked them to remove me from their mailing list.

Anonymous said...

Earnest Prole: It's a dumb habit of all classes to drink as a response to unhappiness and frustration.

Who said otherwise? Every comment isn't a response to your own musings.

What's philistine is to call it philistine.

The only person here associating philistinism with social class is you.

Earnest Prole said...

The only person here associating philistinism with social class is you.

I thought you were using philistine as a synonym for bourgeois, but I now realize you meant the term literally, to indicate a resident of Philistia, “a pentapolis in the southwestern Levant comprising the five city-states of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath.” Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Ken B said...

Earnest Prole
Philistine has never meant bourgeois, nor has bourgeois ever meant philistine. This is why we spell them so differently. The bourgeois do not scorn learning, but the philistine do. Your rude comment is philistine. Mine is bourgeois.

Anonymous said...

Earnest Prole: I thought you were using philistine as a synonym for bourgeois...

I've never heard anyone outside of a certain class of affected British pseuds use "philistine" as a synonym for "bourgeois". Except for a a couple of comically pretentious American trust-funders with Guardian subscriptions.

Which kind are you?

walter said...

Hil's a vodka gal.Travels well in an Evian bottle.

gadfly said...

Do you realize how unusual that is — advertising an alcohol beverage as a way to deal with unhappiness or any sort of problem?

No - but I realize how far left that Editor Katrina vanden Heuevel has set the sights for The Nation. We are all dying from Climate Denialism.

Never mind that all the King's horses and all the King's men can't put the "Humpty-Dumpty" sphere that we call Earth back together again after natural calamities occur. Man cannot stop the real and imagined changes to climate, weather, nor mutations of livings things.

You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away — all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It’s powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that’s happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us. ~Michael Crichton, "Preamble to Jurassic Park"

The Godfather said...

I never drink when I'm unhappy or depressed. Well, not after the first glass.

Bad Lieutenant said...


MaxedOutMama said...
Hillary made it respectable with her comments?

Before that, there was an actual President who wrote, "Booze helped some, and pot; a little blow when I could afford it," which was as miserable a thing for a presidential candidate to say. At least President Bush had the decency to regret his folly and evince a little shame.

Earnest,

I'm a little tired of your incessant smarmy bullshit. Could you write better, please?

Michael said...

https://www.amazon.com/Vino-Duplicitas-Rise-Forger-Extraordinaire-ebook/dp/B01M6WQEP9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505167046&sr=8-1&keywords=in+vino+duplicitas

Great read about the wine forger who scammed some very rich wine snobs.

exhelodrvr1 said...

How many orders were placed from Chappaqua? Just curious.

Ken B said...

Michael
There was a movie about that wine scam, a documentary. I forget the name of it alas, but saw it on Amazon prime.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Wine, the new lithium.

Fernandinande said...

Michael said...
Great read about the wine forger who scammed some very rich wine snobs.


They like bottles and prices. He gave them bottles and prices.

Earnest Prole said...

Which kind are you?

I'm a Prole. I take it English is neither your first nor second language?

Fernandinande said...

I'm the smug kind of philistine and smugly never drink any wine for any reason.

Quaestor said...

Actually it's still pretty funny. Do we have to explain to the younger generation what a fifth is or was?

I don't think I even bought a fifth, but I think it's a fifth of a gallon. Doing the arithmetic led me to conclude 7ml was a small price to pay for even conversion to metric.

Mr. Fabulous said...

(World Famous Lurker says....)

Michael, one of my favorite Dick Francis novels was called "Proof", and the plot revolved around counterfeit spirits, from wine to whiskey. Detective and mystery novels, along with a heavy dose of SF, were my favorite genres when I had the leisure time to sit and read a novel. Alas, now days I seldom choose to read fiction in my limited free time. Instead, much of the time I used to devote to fiction reading is now eaten up by gaming. I am currently playing "Dishonored 2", recommended to me by a client. I had finished up "Prey" (the new release), and it turns out that both games were developed by Arkane Studios. Now the client is playing Prey, and is giving it rave reviews.

wildswan said...

As the sun sets I gaze into my computer delicately sipping a thimble-full of Schadenfreude Elixir from my eternally-filled bottle. Hmm, The Nation is suggesting a tote bag to carry the huge number of wine bottles that leftys need to keep on hand to endure the sight of Trump's smiling face at the White House. Sip. Ahh, Hillary's book is out. She savages Sanders - the two, obviously, intend to run again in 2020. Sip. And the GOPe is outraged that Trump made a deal with Pelosi before the GOP did. Two sips and a pause to study the golden light on the trees. Enough.

Earnest Prole said...

I'm a little tired of your incessant smarmy bullshit. Could you write better, please?

Sorry, too many drinks -- catch me before noon if you're looking for anything incisive.

mockturtle said...

Per wildswan: sipping a thimble-full of Schadenfreude Elixir

Nothing like 100-proof schadenfreude to make one feel all better. And all the schadenfreude this year is 100-proof.

Sam L. said...

Did they send this ad to Hillary? Inquiring minds want to know.

tcrosse said...

It's that Schadenfreude Trockenbeerenauslese, pressed from the finest sour grapes, that tastes so good. Das Leben is zu kurz um schlechten Wein zu trinken.

mockturtle said...

It's that Schadenfreude Trockenbeerenauslese, pressed from the finest sour grapes, that tastes so good. Das Leben is zu kurz um schlechten Wein zu trinken.

:-D

mockturtle said...

Tcrosse, I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read Goethe.

EMyrt said...

wildswan and mockturtle would win the thread (this is a vintage year for Schadenfreude) were it not for n.n.'s extremely subtle barb.

And I notice The Nation's wine club sells only PC wine; I'm sure it tastes dreadful except for the soupcon of virtue signal.

Me, I'm a gin drinker, usually in cocktails so floral they taste like cologne. So perhaps I shouldn't throw stones.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Since you seem to suck-up to every president, regardless of who they are or what they do, why not a tag that says, "generic presidential suck-up derangement syndrome?"

tim in vermont said...

Too bad the Democrats didn't run somebody aside from Hillary, we could have talked about the issues. Like does anybody truly believe in the labor theory of value?

hombre said...

Kurt Schlicter calls Trump supporters "the normals."

It has a nice ring to it: Trumpnormals.

Michael K said...

Good link today to a column by Krauthammer on Bush and the Democrats' rage in 2004.

He calls it "The Pressure Cooker Effect. "

But that is still not enough to account for the level of venom today. It is not often that a losing presidential candidate (Al Gore) compares the man who defeated him to both Hitler and Stalin. It is not often that a senior party leader (Edward Kennedy) accuses a sitting president of starting a war ("cooked up in Texas") to gain political advantage for his reelection.

The loathing goes far beyond the politicians. Liberals as a body have gone quite around the twist. I count one all-star rock tour, three movies, four current theatrical productions and five bestsellers (a full one-third of the New York Times list) variously devoted to ridiculing, denigrating, attacking and devaluing this president, this presidency and all who might, God knows why, support it.

How to explain? With apologies to Dr. Freud, I propose the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release.

The hostility, resentment, envy and disdain, all superheated in Florida, were not permitted their natural discharge. Came Sept. 11 and a lid was forced down. How can you seek revenge for a stolen election by a nitwit usurper when all of a sudden we are at war and the people, bless them, are rallying around the flag and hailing the commander in chief? With Bush riding high in the polls, with flags flying from pickup trucks (many of the flags, according to Howard Dean, Confederate), the president was untouchable.

The Democrats fell unnaturally silent. For two long, agonizing years, they had to stifle and suppress. It was the most serious case of repression since Freud's Anna O. went limp. The forced deference nearly killed them. And then, providentially, they were saved.


And now Trump beats Hillary.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Like does anybody truly believe in the labor theory of value?

Morally, I do. But in the cold, hardscrabble economic calculus that runs our country, price alone is all that matters. And if you can price the cost of labor low enough, that's all the policy-makers care about, unfortunately.

If we did more for our own labor then I'd propose that the minimum wages would rise with worker productivity gains.

If everything is about economics then it's impossible to deny the decreasing marginal cost of lobbying, the more money a corp/industry has to do it.

Walmart should be taxed at an amount great enough to cover the cost of every one of its food-stamp receiving workers what we instead bill the government to cover them to be adequately fed. What a fucking disgrace. The owners of that company are worth in the hundreds of billions. They should pay up or be hung by their genitals.

tcrosse said...

Tcrosse, I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read Goethe.

Neither have I. I learned my Goethe in the gutter.

FullMoon said...
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Michael K said...

Economist Ritmo is almost as talented as Field Marshall Freder.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What is the dollar amount of food stamps given to Wal-Mart workers, as opposed to the amount of taxes paid by WalMart?

Enough to cover what they should be paying their employees to be able to eat.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Economist Ritmo is almost as talented as Field Marshall Freder.

It makes sense that professional name-caller Michael K. - unable as ever to actually discuss any actual point - would be as undisturbed at the level of government cheese the nation's largest private-sector employer forces its staff to live off of at taxpayer expense. After all, he did live off nursemaid tittay cheese for the entirety of his formative years.

tim in vermont said...

Morally, I do.

Yeah, that's what I thought, it's more the doctrine of value of labor. Somebody mentioned it here the other day and I looked it up, and it made zero sense to me. I don't think it does any good to deny the laws of economics, you know, like supply and demand. Because guess what? They ain't going away and denying them leads to impoverishment and chaos. I mean for instance, pretending that the law of supply and demand doesn't apply to labor, and therefore it is OK to keep importing more and more cheap labor, driving down wages at Walmart, Things like that.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yeah, that's what I thought, it's more the doctrine of value of labor. Somebody mentioned it here the other day and I looked it up, and it made zero sense to me. I don't think it does any good to deny the laws of economics, you know, like supply and demand. Because guess what? They ain't going away and denying them leads to impoverishment and chaos. I mean for instance, pretending that the law of supply and demand doesn't apply to labor, and therefore it is OK to keep importing more and more cheap labor, driving down wages at Walmart, Things like that.

That's because you seem to worship the supposed "law" of regulatory capture. The nation's policies are anti-poor and pro-rich because they're designed that way. Through legislation. Not through whatever economic invisible natural law magic you believe in.

Find a single jurisdiction that increased its minimum beyond the pathetic $7.25 or whatever and suffered because of it. Including those that have gone all the way to $15. The economy didn't do worse decades ago when the minimum was way higher adjusted for inflation or the CEO/average pay ratio was much lower, either. You're inhaling pixie dust and just doing the right-wing "I hate the poor because I need to feel better than someone" thing. The billionaires are getting the laws that benefit them because they are paying for them - whereas the poor and middle class aren't, and you call it an economic law. It's no such thing. It's you doing their bidding because you don't know whom else to look up to, and apparently can't look up to yourself, either.

Gahrie said...

Walmart should be taxed at an amount great enough to cover the cost of every one of its food-stamp receiving workers

Why pick on Walmart? Is it OK for Target employees to receive food stamps? McDonald's?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Why pick on Walmart?

It's the nation's largest private sector employer, its largest workforce of food-stamp recipients and is owned by a family of hundred-billionaires. Clearly the idea that the Waltons are taxed enough already has not hurt them, let alone that greed that impels them to strive to deprive their workers. So they make a good example of what's wrong with America, but I don't let other big businesses with starving employees off the hook. If they want their taxes lowered let them pay their staff a living wage. Something other than a starvation wage. Or maybe they can explain why other companies can pay something higher than a starvation wage while their taxes are the way they are currently.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Yeah, I don't let off the hook any huge, heavily capitalized multinational whose workforce's starvation wage is subsidized by my tax dollars. Fuck that. You'd have to be in complete denial to pretend that some "natural law" is making that the way it is. Nonsense.

Richard said...

The Nation has a wine club? How bourgeois can they get? You would think that their drink of choice would be vokka.

walter said...

"they should pay up or be hung by their genitals. "
Things be gettin' good nows...

FullMoon said...
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FullMoon said...
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walter said...

They're eating..mos def.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

How much would that be?

Why don't you figure it out, brainiac. Let's see - cost of a food stamp x no. of employees on them. I mean, it's not as complicated as measuring lumber to cut or anything but I'm sure you can figure it out.

FullMoon said...
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Ken B said...

The labor theory of value holds that the same item made by machine has less value than one made by hand, even if it's identical or inferior. Machines cannot produce value. Toothless believes this crap, in his "heart".

FullMoon said...
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Rusty said...

Michael K said...
"Economist Ritmo is almost as talented as Field Marshall Freder."

It is to laugh.

walter said...

Why is it so hard for folks to make active links? It's especially pertinent to phone surfers viewing link supported punding against ritmo.
Whatevs, here is fullmoon's link formateed via www.easyhyperlinks.com
Myth busted

walter said...

Ann COULD add that to her list of web thingies..
COULD..

Michael K said...

"Why is it so hard for folks to make active links? I"

Some of us do and some of us are Ritmo.

Free range opinions with no facts,

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

cheer up, whiners, you have Antifa mask wearers and CNN.

walter said...

Yes..welll..toothlesss will occasionally Gish Gallop over a topic, but this is more typical: "Why don't you figure it out, brainiac. Let's see - cost of a food stamp x no. of employees on them."

FullMoon said...
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walter said...

UAt the core, it's ridiculous that "blogger" doesn't auto-enable links..or do they offer that option when creating/managing a blog?

walter said...

Really 'moon?
I get: Server not found

Firefox can’t find the server at www.http.

Check the address for typing errors such as ww.example.com instead of www.example.com
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Another stupid non-answer, because you have no answer...

Mathematical illiterate seems to not understand that total quantity of y when x receives y = x times y.

My links are better than yours. I've got more of them. Plus, I can read them and understand what they say - unlike you:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-12/sorry-wal-mart-amazon-wants-your-food-stamp-customers-as-well
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/04/walmart_employees_on_food_stamps_their_wages_aren_t_enough_to_get_by.html
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/13/theres-a-new-way-to-make-walmart-pay-for-the-food-stamps-employees-rely-on/
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages/

Now go run along, and find another piece to regurgitate and not understand. Maybe get it from one of those fancy investor rags, too. You should open your own hedge fund, with all that you don't know and just copy and paste instead.

walter said...

Awesome..unlinked links.
Brilliant!

Alex said...

So good ole alcoholism disguised as anti-Trump behavior. Go ahead lefties, drink up!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Free range opinions with no facts,

The above is itself an example of an opinion (and a stupid one, at that), and you'd best believe that Nursemaid-suckled Michael K. has no facts of his own to add to the conversation. And even less interpretation.

Watch him prove me right. $20 says he will add no facts. And even if he does, he will not be able to defend them.

You nutless wonders can even convert said $20 into food stamps, just because it's obvious how much you love them and how much of them you want the American economy to run on.

FullMoon said...
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FullMoon said...
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walter said...

Big on the nursemaid bit too.
"You fucking oldies..submit or die!"

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Big yawn. Boring, as well as stupid.

Yes, I know. This is why no one pays you for your stupid opinion. It's also what you said when you were being flunked out of the 5th, 7th and 9th grades. Reality has no obligation to entertain your ADHD-addled ass.

Easy solution, WalMart will no longer hire people who receive govt assistance, they can stay on welfare, as you want them.

Then you would just have to pay even more of their assistance and benefits, which must be exactly what a taxpayer looking to create a huge deficit wants to do - for some reason.

Along with algebra, basic reasoning not your strong suit, either?

Apparently you're not even running the construction, just a grunt. Hopefully a major crane accident is in store in your not so distant future. Just make sure the load falls on your cranium, as you've made clear several times that you find it to be your least important body part.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Big on the nursemaid bit too.
"You fucking oldies..submit or die!"


Are you saying that Michael K is not an entitled, elite trustafarian?

I think he would object to that.

He reminds me of the asshole with the blonde ponytail at the Harvard bar in Good Will Hunting. Just nothing at all to add to any discussion other than how he can regurgitate a fact to make himself feel smart, fail to say anything original or defensible or insightful about it, and snipe at everyone else with his insults and demands that they create a safe space for him.

Michael K said...

Hilarious. I just bought opera tickets on line and Ritmo doesn't even know what that is.

It's kind of sad to see what the education system has created in this country. We have people posting comments who think the Marxist theory of value is valid.

History is no longer taught in schools.

Females have more trouble repaying student loans because of the majors they choose.

Then we have kids who live in their mother's basements opining on economics.

FullMoon said...
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walter said...

Nah..I suspect that is your own projection/reflection.
The hardest left guy encountered at U-Mad was a roommate who was indeed a trust fund baby.
Good times.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

History is no longer taught in schools.

Check it out! Michael K (guy in the pony tail) knows HISTORY!

Then we have kids who live in their mother's basements opining on economics.

Is living in a mother's basement something like being suckled by the household nursemaid as a youngster? Because I heard you know a lot about that.

You've got a lot of nerve. Talk of mothers' basements by a guy who flat-out admits he was raised by a NURSEMAID!

johns said...

You have imbibed a glass of wine. You are female. You are now not responsible for your actions. You may have voted for a Republican. Your vote must be annulled.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Chuckie: All right, are we gonna have a problem?

Michael K: There's no problem. I was just hoping you could give me some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the early colonies. My contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War the economic modalities, especially of the southern colonies could most aptly be characterized as agrarian pre-capitalist and...

Will: [interrupting] Of course that's your contention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly, you’re gonna be convinced of that until next month when you get to James Lemon, then you’re gonna be talkin’ about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year, you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin’ about you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.

Michael K: [taken aback] Well, as a matter of fact, I won't, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of--

Will: ..."Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth..." You got that from Vickers. "Work in Essex County," Page 98, right? Yeah I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us- you have any thoughts of- of your own on this matter? Or do- is that your thing, you come into a bar, you read some obscure passage and then you pretend- you pawn it off as your own- your own idea just to impress some girls? Embarrass my friend?

Will: See the sad thing about a guy like you, is in about 50 years you’re gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you’re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda' got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.

Michael K: Yeah, but I will have a degree, and you'll be serving my kids fries at a drive-thru on our way to a skiing trip.

Will: [smiles] Yeah, maybe. But at least I won't be unoriginal. But if you have a problem with that, I mean, we could just step outside and we could figure it out.

walter said...

TR as Matt Damon character!

FullMoon said...
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walter said...

He should point at Pony Tail guy and shout NURSEMAID!!!

FullMoon said...
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Michael said...

Sad. TTR fancies himself the hero of Good Will Hunting. LOL

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

WHOA! That "living in Mom's basement" really struck a nerve eh, goofy?

I just think it's boring, and unoriginal. And incredibly ironic given that he was raised by his nursemaid.

Don't you think so? Or were you raised by a nursemaid, also? Obviously not, given how pisspoor your social life is and how low your status is. But I realize you must defend him anyway, given how much it bothers you to see me posting here.

I guess your wife is pretty bad at providing an active social life for the both of you, also, then? Do you mean to say all the San Franciscans aren't impressed when invited over to your obviously awesome house and you brag to them about your property values, as if that's supposed to endear you to them or something?

Maybe go on over to Alcatraz and bang on the bars a little. Perhaps that will make you interesting to them.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Sad... LOL

Sad... LOL?

I always knew you were irrational, Michael. But now you're revealing yourself to be downright bipolar.

Don't dispense with the fake emotions. Everyone knows you're a sociopath anyway who doesn't actually experience them.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I never said I was a Matt Damon character, but it's nice to know you think so.

I said that Michael K was the ponytail character. And apparently everyone here agrees.

WIN!

FullMoon said...
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MPH said...

"The Nation" are among the greatest Trump apologists across the entire media landscape.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That's why it was so surprising how you over reacted to it.

It wasn't an overreaction. I mean, I realize now how much you're used to being ignored, but you don't have to get all emotional about someone simply responding to you. Yes, your fellow San Franciscans ignore you endlessly. But no, that wasn't an overreaction.

No shame in it, hard for a single, underpaid guy to make a go of it these days.

I take it from this comment that your equally talentless wife must nonetheless support you financially.

I guess it explains your bitchiness here on the blog. Your wife wears your pants!

Are they overalls, at least? Some hicks find that to be mighty sexy.

You'll take what you can get with how much the San Fran girls ignore you.

FullMoon said...

I take it from this comment that your equally talentless wife must nonetheless support you financially.

I guess it explains your bitchiness here on the blog. Your wife wears your pants!

Are they overalls, at least? Some hicks find that to be mighty sexy.

You'll take what you can get with how much the San Fran girls ignore you.

9/11/17, 11:12 PM


Hitchens is dead, but his wit lives on, haha!

Rusty said...

Hitchens is dead, but his wit lives on, haha!

You mistake vitriol for wit.
Condensate , ritmo, is not a mixer.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hitchens was funny. Ritmo is bitter and loathsome.

tim in vermont said...

You're inhaling pixie dust and just doing the right-wing "I hate the poor because I need to feel better than someone" thing. The billionaires are getting the laws that benefit them because they are paying for them - whereas the poor and middle class aren't, and you call it an economic law.

I don't hate the poor. I am willing to bet that I know a shit-ton more people who are at the bottom end of the working class than you do, and I don't hate them. That's because I grew up poor, well, not "poor", but without much money, family had no car till I was in jr high, for one thing, my uncle lived in a trailer, and I only knew one person besides my teachers who went to college until I went to college myself. I empathize with them and their problems, and from what I can tell, you don't, you condescend, like everybody in the white left does the lower classes.

One of their problems is competition for jobs from illegals is driving down wages. I notice that in all of the verbiage you produced, you never answered that one. It's OK to be against illegal immigration because it's fucking pro-labor! The only reason that the unions are supporting this policy is because they are more concerned with Democrat politics than they are with the welfare of their workers, hence the huge decline in union membership.

Since you brought it up, why don't you show me a study that demonstrates where raising the minimum wage significantly above the price of labor doesn't cut the number of jobs and actually increases employment of working class people, or at a minimum, doesn't cut the number of entry level jobs?

Not holding my breath.

tim in vermont said...

Funny how Ritmo and the Chamber of Commerce Republicans are on the same page regarding illegal immigration.

tim in vermont said...

I remember hearing a story that Rodin paid a plumber who had worked at his house for several days by taking a pen and paper and scribbling out a drawing for him in about a minute. The plumber was perfectly happy in the exchange. Not sure what that says about the value of a thing begin related to the amount of labor that went into it though.

John Nowak said...

So there was once a rock used to carve a multilingual government announcement. A few governments later, it was used as a stone, then a foundation, and then some French guys dug it up, some English guys swiped it, and now it's in the British Museum and likely one of the most valuable artifacts in the world.

Labor theory apologists, explain that.

Delayna said...

If Labor Theory was valid, we'd be digging ditches with teaspoons.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"I don't hate the poor. I am willing to bet that I know a shit-ton more people who are at the bottom end of the working class than you do, and I don't hate them"

Hey, don't knock over Ritmo's big beautiful straw man. The most hate-filled commenter on Althouse desperately needs to believe that we are all as motivated by hatred as he is. Nothing you write will move him or ever cause him to examine his beliefs.

Michael K said...

Ritmo is safely back in his windowless cave by now. He really has a long list of hates.

Todd said...

I still find it quite humorous that "us" having to deal with and handle 8 years of Obama was just "normal" but "them" having to deal with and handle Trump is the "new normal".

Obama equals normal.
Clinton equals normal.
Trump equals "new normal".

I am seeing a bit of a possible trend here...

tim in vermont said...

I know I am in the minority here,but if you ignore his vitriol, you can learn stuff from ritmo. Plus he gets points in my book for having Hillary pegged before the election.

I learned today that liberals really believe that they can overcome the effects of immigration

tim in vermont said...

Illegal immigration by simply raising the minimum wage!!

Michael K said...

"Illegal immigration by simply raising the minimum wage!!"

Put everyone to work building robots and electronic kiosks ?

That'll work.

Todd said...

Gahrie said...
Walmart should be taxed at an amount great enough to cover the cost of every one of its food-stamp receiving workers

Why pick on Walmart? Is it OK for Target employees to receive food stamps? McDonald's?

9/11/17, 8:38 PM


One simply MUST pick on Walmart! The amount of smug one gets from attacking a company that has the audacity to proudly employ "those" people and treat them like actual functioning adults, well we just can't have any of that!

People that pick on Walmart do it mostly for one of two reasons.

Reason A is that Walmart puts mom-n-pop business out of business by undercutting their prices. The folks that make this argument don't purchase from mom-n-pop businesses but that is besides the point. Walmart destroys the local community character!

Reason B is that Walmart employees people at entry level positions for entry level wages and allows them to work their way up to management positions AND gives them freedom to choose their benefits a-la-cart. It also gives them flexible working hours, part time if they want it, etc.

Wrapped up in both of those reasons is the anger at Walmart for allowing too many of "those" people access to goods at low prices allowing an improved standard of living without Government intervention. Can't have that either.

Is Walmart perfect? Hell no but that company has done more to positively affect the lives of more middle class and low income families than all of the Government programs combined. And we can't have THAT.

Michael K said...

"Reason A is that Walmart puts mom-n-pop business out of business by undercutting their prices."

The same arguments and better ones could be made against Amazon but Bezos bought the WaPo to defend himself on the left.

mockturtle said...

The same arguments and better ones could be made against Amazon but Bezos bought the WaPo to defend himself on the left.

Bingo!

Todd said...

As with most things, there are two sides and one signals their liberal bonifieds by the side they pick.

Walmart puts mom-n-pops out of business is the "position", not that the mom-n-pops charged more so fewer people could afford their products.

Walmart pays "non-living" wages, not that Walmart gives thousands [that want them] jobs with [optional] benefits and a possible career.

No one is forced to work for Walmart or to shop at Walmart but they (Walmart) are EVIL, according to liberals so we must get Government to intervene as the folks that directly benefit from Walmart (shoppers and employees) are just too stupid to boycott them. And you are correct, Walmart hasn't purchased a major news paper to cover for them. Not that I don't appreciate Amazon as well but Walmart benefits far more lower income families than Amazon does.

Rusty said...

Goddamn Henry Ford! he put all those mom and pop harness makers out of business!
Progressives aren't very progressive, are they?
Robots gonna stael our jobs!
Comical

FullMoon said...
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Rusty said...

Ah.
You were bored.
Understandable.