I'm hoping to get Chicagoboyz back to posts about airplanes. Politics is a dead subject. The lefties have made their bed. Now, find a job.
And john said:
I think there is some early celebration of the med pot voting results.
He wasn't referring to Michael K, but to... well, if you go over there and scroll — which I don't recommend — you'll see a few things, which, as I said, I don't recommend. It was enough to make wyo sis say "This thread is either above my head or beneath my contempt. If I understood it I could tell which for sure." And john returns us to the aviation theme:
Does anyone else here read FlightLevel390? The best aviation blog around, and the site just got pulled off. I thought Tuesday was a bummer, but this is worse....
Flying stuff. Written by a pilot for a major airline (USAir I think). Beautiful poetic writing, gripping (really) tales of flying coast to coast, with regular dips into the technical aspects of flight and airplanes.
That's when Chip Ahoy — our fat angel, though I'm sure he's not fat — comes in with his pancakes made of "17 B-52's of milk," which doesn't stop LoafingOaf from calling him a "little fucking internet douchebag pussy," which makes it painfully obvious that we are not aviators. We are on the internet.
We are flying at an altitude of 39,000 feet/Captain High at your service...
We are all little fucking internet douchebag pussies now. What are you going to do about it? Go to Colorado/Washington, where pot has magically become legal... except to the extent it's a federal crime? You don't need that "med" modifier anymore. And you don't need a note from your little fucking internet douchebag pussy doctor.
Mr. Forward introduced a classic "orange" subject:
Nothing rhymes with orange.
Hector Owen responded:
I suppose, if one were to make a ceramic porringer, and glaze it the color of those carrots, and set it on the table with other things that did not include carrots, or yams, or (of course) oranges, that one could then proudly say, "Nothing is oranger than my porringer!"
Still, nothing rhymes with "orange." Now, if that porringer had a flange … no, the "a" would still be different.
I thought the right answer was "door hinge."
Lucid sledgehammers the meaning of the post:
This is clearly a very penetrating (???!!!!) photographic comment: While women (pink) are to be carefully considered, the photographer also feels concern for the tribulations of men and their special appendages.
Freeman Hunt provides an amazing list of things that an orange ribbon is supposed to reflect/create awareness of — according to this creepy awareness site:
There's some sad orange wearers right this minute 'cause University of TN just missed knocking off #1 Alabama...the score was 12 to 10 and UT had a chance at making a field goal in the last couple of seconds.
Knox(ville) — who "just ordered myself a black 'Amish Support' ribbon car magnet!" — said:
Yeah, yeah, keep it to yourself.
Oh, who am I kidding, I don't give a sh*t about football.
You are talking about football, right?
Leland said...
Texas A&M, in the[ir] hatred for University of Texas and all things orange, learned how to grow maroon carrots.
Libhom said:
This post is as senseless as everything else on this blog.
Chip Ahoy said:
This post has no meaning!
Just like everything else on this blog -- meaningless.
Just like my life has no meaning. Except for the meaning I give it by spending time here noting your abject absence of meaning and returning regularly and reaffirming that observation and then setting aside my other meaninglessness to take the time and effort to remark on your meaninglessness, even so far as to bother with a CAPTCHA to do it. Yes, that's right, my remark on your meaningless blog does have meaning although I assert your blog that I make the remark on does not.
But then I wouldn't recognize meaning if it jumped up and bit my penis. I do not understand photography or art or getting out and seeing my city or recording it with my own unique eye and through my own lens, or forests or farmers market or flower boxes, animals or odd things in nature or within human constructions. They're meaningless to me! Now, start being meaningful Goddamnit! And give me something meaningful to foul.
Then my other self says,
I once had a careless carrot patch. There was loose tilled dirt directly under an air conditioner that dripped steadily throughout the hot summer directly onto that patch of dirt, so watering was automatic. I had a packet of carrot seeds that I broadcast into the soil and, being an ordinary kid, didn't pay much attention to them thereafter, just checked back occasionally. The plants are beautiful at every stage of development, more so because they were not arranged in tight farmerly rows. At first the foliage looks like delicate little green feathers, then lacy ferns, then they expand, fill in, and strengthen to proper deep dark green carrot tops. The bright orange carrot roots were delicious.
LoafingOaf said:
These are gross looking carrots. They look like fucked up fingers or pathetic penises or something. Ick.
Uh, yeah. Have you no pity! Why are cancerous breasts a big warm fuzzy cause, but a pathetic penis is just something against which to hurl contempt? Sexist. You must wear a light blue ribbon for penance. Penis penance.
And yet the Oaf continues:
I have a question. Why is everything that Obama says or does horribly wrong to Althouse and her commenters, yet Dick Cheney is such a hero the Althouse world wants to build him a statue in Madison? Is Obama really that awful and Cheney really that righteous? Or is this blog getting carried away by the right wing?
(Link added.)
Bissage said:
I find myself disappointed that Loafing Oaf didn’t post a link to his blog where we’d all find his twelve point plan specifying what each and every one of us should do to make Althouse so very much better than it is.
Oh, Bissage, et al., you have made Althouse so very much better than I am.
I ... stumbled across these comments in Ann Althouse's blog, regarding my skepticism of Sarah Palin's pregnancy stories. I deserve criticism on this and have aired it on this blog ... not because my doubts have been put to rest, but because I know I'm out on a limb and I know that means you take your fair share of whacks. But look at these comments, which Althouse engages with and certainly doesn't remove. I have a thick skin but really...
Go to the link to see what he selected from the comments to quote.
This comes with the territory. Some of it is even a little funny. I'm not complaining. But it does bear noting that on a widely read conservative blog, this stuff is routine. I think that's part of the GOP's problem. I also think that Althouse's engagement in the comments section and failure to remove any of these remarks is eloquent.
"Althouse engages"... "Althouse's engagement"... hey! That reminds me of the time he gratuitously mocked me for writing a blog post letting people know I'd gotten engaged. A peek into Andrew's psyche? Tied to his obsession with Palin's womb? Think about it.
Anyway, as many of you readers have seen time and time again, I have a very high tolerance for vigorous/rough/nasty speech in the comments here. (Some of it is very pro-male homosexuality!)
I rarely delete, and there is no way that my failure to delete indicates approval. I do sometimes participate in the comments, and I have one comment (accidentally double posted) near the beginning of the thread in question. That comment of mine is a response to a commenter (Loafing Oaf) who asks:
How come we often see Althouse commenting on Andrew Sullivan posts but we almost never see him posting replies? I like Andrew Sullivan, but I wish he'd engage in more back-and-forth between him and bloggers who disagree with him.
(Guess that one got answered.)
Althouse tends to post replies when bloggers post criticism of her. In recent years, a lot of the bigshot political bloggers have decided to just ignore debating people who disagree with them.
So I did engage with a commenter in that thread. I answered a specific question that was addressed to me, and that I happened to find interesting. What I don't do — and what Sullivan is wrong to infer — is monitor the hundreds of comments that come in every day. I don't systematically keep track of anything. Sometimes I read haphazardly, and I am a very busy person... a very busy person who is committed to free speech and to creating a place where people with different opinions can talk with/at each other.
Now, Sullivan is upset/annoyed that some homophobic things show up in the threads here, as if it says something about my blog. He doesn't have comments, but I'll bet if he did, he'd collect plenty of homophobic crap at his place too. Probably even more than shows up here. Maybe that's one reason he doesn't have comments. But I've chosen to open my place to comments, and I have a strong free speech policy.
And let me add that my writing on this blog has never included anything homophobic, that I have a long record of supporting gay rights, and that many of the commenters who hang out here here are gay men. There is no way that I am cuing readers to be homophobic, and I think people who care about free speech and vigorous debate should be careful not to impute such things to me.
ADDED: And check out the lame piling-on by the local blogger for the Isthmus, Kenneth Burns:
... Andrew Sullivan... quotes vile anti-gay comments on the blog of Ann Althouse, the Robert W. & Irma M. Arthur-Bascom Professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Althouse is teaching on the Madison campus this fall.
Indeed, Althouse has been teaching on the Madison campus since 1984.
These slurs appear quite literally under Althouse's name. If her policy is not to delete comments, that's her prerogative. But what purpose is served by leaving them up, other than to humilate gays like Sullivan and me and further curdle an already dismal political discourse? Is this prominent Madisonian proud to have these people as readers?
The purpose is free speech and vigorous debate.
AND: No one emailed me to point out offensive comments and request that I consider deleting them. I wasn't aware of any of them until I read Sullivan's post this morning. I did get email the other day asking me to delete some nonsense about Glenn Beck. (I didn't delete.) I might delete some truly vile things about gay people. I've deleted comments that contain the n-word. Try emailing me!
ALSO: Boy, a link from Sullivan — who has huge traffic — brings very few readers over here. I would like them to see what the real context is. Of course, a link from the Isthmus blog brings absolutely nothing. As expected.
Yesterday, the day I saw "The Curious Life of Benjamin Button" and wrote that post, I conked out early.
Oh, I don't know if it was from the movie or from the pizza and one glass of wine I had afterward or just from being somewhat old. Most of the people in the movie audience were old, so old, that when Cate Blanchett reassured the getting-younger Benjamin by saying that we all wear diapers in the end, and the chuckle from the audience was unnervingly warm, I had to speculate that there was a high Depends-to-butt ratio in the theater at that very moment. And who knows? Perhaps young soda-swillers wear Depends to the movies, especially to 3-hour extravaganzas like "Benjamin Button." Especially with all that water imagery:
[W]ater is often seen as a symbol for birth/re-birth, and [I] thought they used it well. Spoilers: The dad nearly throws Pitt in the water in the beginning, Pitt takes the dad to sit by the water, Tilda Swinton swims the English Channel, all of the work Pitt does on the boat and the sailing, Daisy takes up swimming after her injury, Hurricane Katrina...anything else?)
And Benjamin fighting the Nazis at sea. Or should I say Ben or Ben-yah-meen?
Here's a weird-ass quirk of mine: For years now, anywhere and everywhere I see the name "Benjamin" used in a narrative (especially a grand, old one) I substitute plain old "Ben." Amazing, how well that works and the perspective it brings.
I studied Arabic one summer during college, and there was a white guy in the program named Benjamin who insisted we all call him Ben-yah-meen. That experience, I think, has much the same effect on Benjamin perspective.
The quote in that first block is from Zachary Paul Sire in the comments. The 2 in the second block are from reader_iam and Freeman Hunt.
See? This post is a tribute to all the commenters who kept an interesting conversation going all night on that thread that I conked out after writing. In the morning, it's my habit to reach for my iPhone before so much as sitting up in bed. Supine, I check the news, mostly to assure myself that nothing terrible happened during the hours when I wasn't paying attention. (The Yellowstone caldera has not exploded, despite the recent, strange swarm of earthquakes.) Then, I read blog comments for a while. Last night's post had accumulated 73 comments. The second one was from me, right before I fell asleep. I was responding to the first comment, from Zachary Paul Sire, who wanted to know if I liked the movie, a matter I'd considered beside the point of the post. I answered:
It was okay. It would have been much better if it were tightened up... and livened up. Like many high-budget, high-aspiration movies of today, it was embalmed. Its "I have always loved you" theme was very conventional, and I never felt much real passion between the 2 lead actors. And neither of them ever said anything clever. But there were some excellent special effects in aging and youthening Pitt and Blanchett, and there were some nice moments. Where to cut? You can cut all whole old dying woman and her daughter scenes, as far as I'm concerned. Reminded me of "Titanic," bringing in an old, old woman to tell the story of her big love to her daughter.
71 comments ensued. I can't reprint them all. But I intend to frontpage much more than usual this morning.
Chuck b. said:
I always enjoy the Althousian disdain for sentimentality (or is it a midwesterner's disdain? or maybe it's just very lawyerly), although I myself enjoy many sentimental films.
Actually, I'm not very good at recognizing sentimentality when I see it. I just let myself get played.
... although I don't cry as much during commercials and sentimental television things as much as Althouse does. Actually, that's interesting. A'house report tearage not infrequently. Does that have something to do with her negative reactions toward...ineffective sentimentality?
Am I midwestern? The most midwestern thing about me is that my mother grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Second is: I went to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Third: I've taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, Wisconsin since 1984 (since I was 33 years old). So: 1. My formative years were not spent in the midwest, and 2. My time in the midwest has entirely been in these 2 university towns that don't really represent the region.
As for crying and sentimentality... 1. I might cry about something sentimental the way I might sneeze in the presence of dusty black pepper. It doesn't mean I admire the cause of the reflex. Quite the opposite. 2. I am cold to some emotional manipulations and susceptible to others. I might get judgmental and resist everything, but I might indulge and enjoy the easily won emotions of sentimentality. There is some good sentimentality. "The Bill Cosby Show" always made me cry. (And I do mean "The Bill Cosby Show," not "The Cosby Show," which I never watched.) 3. There are some things I regard as real art. I keep these separate, whether they provoke crying or not. The Kubrick movie "Lolita" caused me to cry profusely, but only after it was over, when I was trying to talk about it. That meant something.
Palladian said:
["Ben Button" s]ounds like a miserable Oscar-bait remake of "Big".
"Big" was much more fun, but like "Big," it gave us a chance to see an adult woman in love with a little boy — without all that nasty guilt that comes from awareness that we are witnessing pedophilia. Unlike "Big," it gave us a chance to see an old man in love with a little girl. Ah, but he's only 7! He's her age. And when an old woman tells him he should be ashamed of himself, we sympathize with the old man. I mean the little boy. And I bet pedophiliac old men believe that at heart they too are little boys.
And Brad Pit and Cate Blanchett? Can there be two more overexposed, boring actors on the planet?
Zachary Paul Sire said:
I love Cate Blanchett (anyone seen "Notes On A Scandal"? Now that's a good movie)...but Brad Pitt has never, ever been interesting to me. I can't think of one movie he's been in that I've enjoyed. Maybe "12 Monkeys," but that's because he was a supporting character. He and Cate, like Althouse said, had absolutely no passion or believability. Lifeless. Boring.
I love Brad in "12 Monkeys." Also in "Fight Club." In fact, I have a lot of respect for Brad Pitt. He picks some artistic projects, and he doesn't just rely on his pretty face — though perhaps he uglifies himself in part for the purpose of sending the message that he is so gorgeous that even uglified he's divine. In "Ben Button," he puts on that old age makeup, but then he emerges from it, so that Brad Pittifulness seems astoundingly new again. He then gets to progress to his "Thelma and Louise" level of insane male beauty. There's a scene in "Button" where he returns to the (old) Cate Blanchett in this form and she exclaims "You're perfect!" and I wanted her to say "Oh my God! You're Brad Pitt!"
Titus said:
For the most part I hate almost every movie that comes out because I find them too boring and too much made for "normal America". I also hate sitting in a movie theater for two hours with other people....
On a seperate [sic] note I have a fear of the dentist. I am only able to go once a year because I literally freak out 24 hours before I go. I have to be sedated, gased and anything else to go. I go every year in January but I now have a toothache so I have to go tomorrow and I am freaking out....
The only good news about going to the dentist tomorrow is he gives me good drugs.
He is a big liberal. His wife works at the front desk and his dog runs around the office.
My dentist is a straight queen. Every time I go in there he shows me one of his new Yoga poses that he has just conquered.
Chuck b. said...
"My dentist is a straight queen."
I loathe heterosexual gay men. What's the phobicity for that?
My dentist is a feisty latina and I am devoted to her. As a regular flosser and non-drinker of sugary beverages, my teeth are always clean and my gums are "tight". I love it when she tells me my gums are tight. Noone else tells me that.
Beth — who lives in New Orleans, the city featured in the movie but not the Fitzgerald story — said:
The more days I am from having seen ["Ben Button"], the more little "hey, that didn't add up" moments I think of. I too could have done without the entire mother/daughter hospital plot. I kept dreading possible outcomes, and that was a distraction.
And no, there's no real chemistry between the leads. There were much more appealing relationships -- b/w Benjamin and the folks in the home, mainly. And the tugboat captain was a favorite of mine.
But I am a partisan for it still; there are lots of movies shot in New Orleans, and this one made such wonderful use of places I love. The bandstand where Daisy does her nighttime dance is one where my friends and I would perform late at night, running wild in the park as teens. Lanaux House, the setting for the Button household, was also the setting for the nasty Gallier sibling household in the 1982 version of Cat People. Overall, I just loved our streets and houses and streetcars and greenery. It all looked so good.
Chuck b. said:
I was in N'awlins once for a week, drunk the whole time. I ate every meal at Paul Prudhomme's place (spelling?!) and marvelled at the cockroaches on the sidewalk that came out when the sun went down. I walked all the way back to my hotel stepping on one cockroach after another, like stepping stones. God, what a great town.
Palladian said:
I cry at the end of "It's A Wonderful Life"....
"It's A Wonderful Life" is a perfect movie. I know that some people think it's commie propaganda and that some douchebag at the New York Times (natch) trashed it this year, but still. Brilliantly detailed, perfect performances. Sob, sob.
Zachary Paul Sire said:
I've actually never watched the entire "It's A Wonderful Life" from beginning to end. I've also never watched an entire episode of "The Simpsons" from beginning to end. Some things just don't appeal to me.
Chuck b. said...
I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life, even a little bit of it.
LoafingOaf said:
I'm also sorry I don't find life so wonderful. Will the movie change my mind? I still smile through most days, though. Life is depressing but you may as well life at it.
Sometimes I come to Althouse blog and the prof's life seems so perfect, and I've never been able to detect any terrible, or even messy, things going on beneath the surface. She's even chummy with her ex, and her sons seem way too well-adjusted. Does she keep it hidden, or is she for real? She seems so "together" I feel if I browse her blog enough it will rub off on me a little. But I do wanna determine whether she just keeps it hidden or if her having her shit so "together" is for real.
You should read what they say about me on those other blogs — where I'm a decrepit, crazy drunk. Obviously, I control the message here. But, in fact, I don't lie about myself. Even though some of my antagonists think I'm outrageously self-absorbed, I rarely reveal anything about my real-world life. Haven't you noticed? My topic selection and various opinions and attitudes may seem idiosyncratic and distinctive enough to give the impression of a window into my life. And my photographs, by physical necessity, show my point of view. But I'm not telling you about any sorrows and struggles that may afflict me. Yes, I have a job that immensely benefits me, but it is exceedingly rare for me to write about my colleagues or students. If they were giving me trouble, you wouldn't know. I'm very lucky to have 2 sons — but I'm not going to say anything bad about them, and I mostly don't write about them. And you see my occasional chumminess with my ex-husband, but we separated more than 20 years ago. You have no evidence at all of any post-1987 love affairs that I may have had and how I may have suffered.
LoafingOaf said:
Oh, well, at least Sarah Palin's life and family turned out to be a mess.
Beth said:
LoafingOaf, I'm just making a guess here, so cut me some slack if I'm offbase.
You might find life a little less depressing if you cut back on the hating, just a bit. Take Palin, for example. She's not running for anything right now. She lost. Why bother looking for a Palin thread anywhere? I know, I know; there are scores of conservatives who can't get through a day without hating on Algore or blaming Bill Clinton for today's crappy economy or holding out for Obama's super-secret African birth certificate -- but they're not good examples for you to follow.
I'm not saying you should be Mary Sunshine, but a small adjustments might be in order. If you just keep your targets of anger current, you'll cut back on a lot of unnecessary bile. And that will increase the room for a bit of wonder in your life.
See how we help each other here?
Chickenlittle said:
She's even chummy with her ex, and her sons seem way too well-adjusted. Does she keep it hidden, or is she for real?
My ex-girlfriend is chummy with my wife. She's coming to visit next weekend--with her husband. We all laugh and joke about the past.
My point is that you can choose to get past horrible hurts in the past--or not. It all depends on the parties involved (and their will to party)
Palladian said:
"Oh, well, at least Sarah Palin's life and family turned out to be a mess."
A mess? She was nominee for vice-president. She has a beautiful family. If you want a mess you should look to yourself and figure out why this woman drove you crazy, why this woman turned you from an interesting commenter to a bitter, twisted loser. Take Beth's advice, Mr Sullivan, and chill out.
Reader_iam, quoting me in the original "Ben Button" post, said:
the old story is crisp and unsentimental
Indeed.
Finally, some love for Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.
And that's the end of the line in this paean to commenters.
Happy New Year, everybody. Let's sing "Auld Lang Syne":
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