First Tme in my Lifetime -- Open Thread

by wj

Because it's important to keep track of what is really important in life. And the Cubs are going to the World Series for the first time since before I was born. Not only that, they did it with the first time a team has faced the minimum number of opposing hitters (27) in a post-season game since . . . 1956: Don Larson's perfect game.

Now we just need to see something not seen since before women had the vote: a World Series victory. Go Cubs!

Comments

[Ugh]

Was Marty McFly in the stands?

[Ugh]

Or Ferris Bueller?

[Ugh]

Bill Murray is in DC this weekend to receive the Mark Twain prize for Humor at the Kennedy Center on Sunday night. Can't imagine the mood he will be in.

[hairshirthedonist]

I think it's great that we're guaranteed to see a team win the World Series who hasn't won it in at least 68 years either way.

[dr ngo]

Ugh: What were the odds that Murray would show up for the Mark Twain award if the ACLS had gone to a seventh game on Sunday?

[russell]

if it can happen for the red sox, it can happen for anyone.

best of luck!

[Count]

Too bad Ernie Banks didn't live long enough for this.

The Indians look tough.

[Roger Moore]

I hope the Cubs invite John Paul Stevens to game 3. In addition to having been a Supreme Court Justice, he's a lifelong Cubs fan and was on hand for game 3 in 1932 when Babe Ruth (allegedly) called his shot.

[Ugh]

I'm still disappointed we didn't get the "end times are nigh" Cubs redsox World Series in 2003, but this is pretty good. Would have been even better if the Cavs hadn't just won the NBA championship.

[Countme-In]

My very late grandfather and great uncle played high school baseball in southwestern Ohio with Charlie Root the Cubbie pitcher who gave up Ruth's alleged called shot.

I inherited a baseball from my great uncle autographed by Root, Charlie Gehringer, Hack Wilson, Kiki Cuyler, and another guy. It sits in my safe deposit box.

[wj]

Back just before World War II, my did was playing in the Cubs farm system for several years. So the family has been Cubs fans (albeit sometimes also mild fans of the local team) ever since.

My sister and I have been texting cheers the length of the West Coast the last few weeks, every time something goes right. But, being true Cubs fans, we aren't about to count any chickens until the eggs are hatched . . . and grown up to lay eggs themselves. ;-)

[Ugh]

Lest things be forgotten:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/10/23/dexter_foster_will_be_the_first_black_chicago_cub_to_play_in_the_world_series.html

[Donald]

Not baseball, just another piece by Patrick Cockburn about modern day wars and propaganda--

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n19/patrick-cockburn/diary

[sapient]

Donald, it's hard to get past the introduction: "The four wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 12 years have all involved overt or covert foreign intervention in deeply divided countries. In each case the involvement of the West exacerbated existing differences and pushed hostile parties towards civil war." Two of those wars were in a civil war when intervention took place. Afghanistan was in a post-civil war state run by the Taliban who was harboring a terrorist organization that bombed the United States, killing more people here than any foreign power since the War of 1812. Cockburn can argue about our policies (especially in Iraq), but let's get the basic background right.

But I did read it, and I find it interesting that Cockburn now blames accurate depictions of atrocities instead of the atrocities themselves for the continuing war. It sort of turns the idea of the media's role in Vietnam on its head.

[Countme-In]

If you wander over to Lawyers, Guns, and Money, you'll find a post about Tom Hayden, who died over the weekend.

As a child, he attended Father Coughlin's parish school (yeah, that one). He, of course, was the subject of massive surveillance and file-mongering by J. Edgar Hoover, and squared off with LBJ, Nixon, and Mayor Daley, among others.

Now, those are some enemies to have accumulated.

They make Trump and company look like chump change in a third-rate, but no less malign, apprentice clown's bottomless pocket.

People in this country use to know how to throw a f&cking demonstration.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Yes, let's get the basics right. Afghanistan was absolutely not in a post-civil-war state. That civil war was ongoing (remember Massoud's assassination on 9/9? No? 'kay...); we chose the noxious side least openly opposed to us, defended it against foreign and domestic opposition (both military and civil), ignored and/or covered up its atrocities, and generally encouraged GIROA corruption while ensuring no reconciliation could occur and thus guaranteeing the civil war was tempirarily paused after a brief spate of victor's justice by our warlord proxies. These inconvenient facts don't line up precisely with Coburn's sweeping summary of the four wars, but they line up better with it than with your rose-tinted interventionist cheerleading.

Also, HTH do you get from the Coburn piece to placing blame on accurate depictions of atrocities for fomenting war? That's more or less the polar opposite of the point he's making...

[hairshirthedonist]

Also, HTH...

Was this supposed to be addressing me ("hope that helps" doesn't seem to fit the context)?

[sapient]

These inconvenient facts don't line up precisely with Coburn's sweeping summary of the four wars, but they line up better with it than with your rose-tinted interventionist cheerleading.

Cockburn's article is based on a seriously inaccurate premise. If you want to argue that a civil war was ongoing in 2001 Afghanistan, that just supports my point that the United States didn't push Afghanistan toward conflict that was already manifest.

As to the propoganda, Cockburn says this:

"The situation has grown worse since Libya. The ‘YouTube war’ showing atrocities on both sides has outpaced the actual war in Syria as an influence on both rebels and government supporters. Satellite channels such as al-Jazeera depend on these propaganda clips. Many of the atrocities are real. Rebels can see film of mass graves of people killed by poison gas or children writhing in pain from napalm burns. In government-held parts of Damascus people don’t go out much in the evening but sit at home watching footage of captured government soldiers being decapitated or Christian priests and Alawite soldiers having their throats cut. Much of this footage is real – but not all."

He then describes some fake atrocities being reported. But how much of a difference does it make that some of the atrocities are false when there is plenty of real horror that is equally gruesome?

[Donald Johnson]

Afghanistan's war started in 1978, even before the Russian invasion, and we wanted it to become a Russian quagmire, so we intervened on the side of the rebels once they were there. In fact I don't remember if we intervened covertly before the Russians came in or not. In hindsight that might have contributed to the collapse of the USSR, but maybe wasn't so great for Afghanistan. Remember the good old days when it seemed like a great idea to encourage Islamic jihad against the atheist commie Westerners?

I didn't totally agree with Cockburn's point on how depiction of atrocities encourages more atrocities, but he is probably at least partly right. I still think we need to know, and more info is better than less, so long as it is accurate information and not fake. But he's obviously right on fake atrocities and we've certainly had those, starting with the baby incubator story in Kuwait back in the Gulf War days and the mass rape story in Libya in 2011. Obviously the people spreading those stories think they make a difference.

[Donald Johnson]

Found the Brezinski interview where he says we covertly aided the Afghan rebels against the communist govenment, thinking this might draw the Russians in. The longer article linked there is also interesting. Some of the Reagan people didn't want a negotiated settlement. They wanted a Russian military defeat.

http://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview

[Ugh]

This reminds me of the back and forth I had with McKinney a while back regarding the constitutionality of government mandating separate bathrooms for each sex:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/10/24/federal_judge_rules_for_free_the_nipple_in_fort_collins_topless_case.html

Free the Nipple should win, ISTM.

[Nigel]

Fascinating (to an ignorant Brit, at least) Atlantic article on the 'Watergate Babies', and how they discarded a populist Democrat tradition almost by accident...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/

I'd be very interested in your comments on this, as it's a thread of recentish US political history I don't know a great deal about.

[sapient]

It was probably just a matter of time before the Soviet Union imploded because of Islam. The Afghan war just made it happen more quickly.

[wj]

Nigel, it makes an interesting contrast, doesn't it?

The Democratic "Watergate babies", who came to Washington determined to, as they saw it, "clean up the mess." And did so by taking over power in Congress and doing things. Versus the Republican Tea Party members, who arrived in Congress to "clean up the mess" . . . and attempted to do so by shutting down the operation of the Congress and the government.

[cleek]

and now Reid has called their bluff.

in the words of Nelson Muntz : Hahhh Ha!

[Nigel]

Hey, wj. I'm interested in the history; the tea party not so much.
:-)

Meanwhile, the U.K. press (& not the liberal bit) is 'interfering' in the US election:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/24/exclusive-investigation-donald-trump-faces-foreign-donor-fundrai/

[bobbyp]

Nigel,

Matt Stoller can be incredibly loopy at times, however there is a kernel of truth to that article. That class was the professional class, and economic populism took a back seat...esp since organized labor turned its back on McGovern in '72.

But the real rot against populism really took off as the cold war intensified (communists thrown out of AFL-CIO), civil rights (a lot of those old timey southern economic populists were, by and large, irredeemable racists....and they left the party. See also labor unions, decline of, a trend that was well under way by Watergate.

Skein of history.....

[bobbyp]

Nigel,

To get a flavor of that era, read up on Gary Hart and "yuppies".

Thanks.

[sapient]

civil rights (a lot of those old timey southern economic populists were, by and large, irredeemable racists....and they left the party.

This is a very interesting, and not well known fact. I wouldn't be surprised if it had a tiny bit to do with the Bernie v. Hillary rift of today.

[Ugh]

I don't think Reid so much as called their bluff as the GOP lost their bet (assume ur talking SCOTUS cleek)

[Nigel]

civil rights (a lot of those old timey southern economic populists were, by and large, irredeemable racists...

That I know, as I've some familiarity with the LBJ story. It's the apparent discarding of the old New Deal politics along with all that which is interesting.

[sapient]

That I know, as I've some familiarity with the LBJ story.

See also Huey Long.

[Donald]

The Hillary-Bernie rift has everything to do with the Atlantic piece, except that Clinton is not a peacenik these days and probably hasn't been one for decades. But on the domestic front Sanders is the old fashioned Democrat and the Clintons were the young rebels that came in during the70's, exactly as described in the piece. The question is how far left has she actually moved as a result of the campaign?

[cleek]

Clinton is not a peacenik these days and probably hasn't been one for decades

this gets near something that bugs me now and then...

there are certainly a lot of peacenik lefties. and many of them seem to think that the Democratic party is the party of peaceniks, and that the GOP is the party of warmongers. and that having non-peacenik positions is therefore a symptom of irredeemable right-wingery.

but i don't see when the Democratic was ever a peacenik party. maybe during Carter? but he was a nuke sub officer - not exactly peacenik-approved. they opposed GOP's-led wars (and vice versa). but the Dems have never been particularly peaceful.

and it's not even the Dems. there are violent leftists all over the world.

so...?

The question is how far left has she actually moved as a result of the campaign?

i got a shiny new dollar for everyone who hasn't already made up their minds on that question.

[sapient]

but i don't see when the Democratic was ever a peacenik party

But who, in the end, doesn't want peace? It's how we get there, and whether we ignore horror and strife happening in the world so that we can keep our hands clean.

Thank you, cleek, for pointing out that "left" does NOT mean "peacenik", especially if "peacenik" means "keep out of trouble at all costs".

[Donald]

Ship me the shiny new dollar. On domestic policy I am not sure where she stands on various issues. She shifts around. I don't know yet whether the left should take credit or is being suckered. That she is a militarist is pretty clear.

Peaceniks can be wrong on occasion-- a classic fictional example for Star Trek nerds would be the saintly Edith Keeler in a famous Star Trek time travel episode who inadvertently caused a Nazi victory. Nice going Edith.

In general, though, liberal humanitarians seem eager to plunge into arming dubious freedom fighters or bombing bad guys with no thought given to the likelihood that this will improve things, while ignoring the situations where we are actively supporting other bad guys doing the same things that allegedly outrage us when done by people we aren't supporting.

[sapient]

Peaceniks can be wrong on occasion-- a classic fictional example for Star Trek nerds would be the saintly Edith Keeler in a famous Star Trek time travel episode who inadvertently caused a Nazi victory. Nice going Edith.

Funny how you point to a fictional example, when WWII American Firsters are perfectly easy to cite. Also, Bosnia. Also Rwanda. Peaceniks were right in Vietnam, and in Iraq. Otherwise, not so clear cut.

[bobbyp]

but i don't see when the Democratic was ever a peacenik party.

Maybe 1944-1946, but once the Iron Curtain rang down, we somehow "lost" China(I say there my good man, have you seen China lately?), and the Red Scare became the prevailing political orthodoxy, both major parties were on board. The one major breakdown was over Viet Nam, and that was, outside of hard(er) left types, an "end this war" movement, not an anti-imperialist (i.e., ideological end all capitalist wars) movement. Also, it was mostly an intraparty dispute.

For the most part, our post WW2 foreign policy has been a fully bipartisan effort.

[wj]

i got a shiny new dollar for everyone who hasn't already made up their minds on that question.

I'll take one also. I have some suspicions (not all that far), but I definitely haven't made up my mind.

[wj]

But who, in the end, doesn't want peace?

Well, Trump ("I love war") comes to mind. But he is merely an example of the chickenhawk mindset. There are people who love the idea of war (the glory! the valor!). As long as they don't have to deal with the nasty reality (the wounded, the destruction) . . . especially getting hurt themselves. It's definitely one of those things that looks more attractive from a distance.

[bobbyp]

Nigel,

Read about Gary Hart. He was one of those types. I feel the Atlantic article was interesting, but a bit overdrawn, IMHO.

Also recommended, "Listen Liberal" by T. Frank. He picks up similar themes, but places them in a bit later context (the onslaught of Reaganism if I recall correctly).

Regards,

[sapient]

Read about Gary Hart. He was one of those types.

You should provide some cites.

The Democratic party split over Vietnam. We had Nixon, Ford, then Carter, a Southern Democrat, who was a pragmatist. We then lost to Reagan (worst President ever, probably including W), and then Bush I. The Vietnam die-hards became Reagan Democrats.

Clinton wanted to get elected so that he could move the country to the left. And he did get elected, but the country freaked out enough to elect a Newt Gingrich Congress, with an extremist Republican agenda (remember - they shut the government down?). Yes, the Congress that impeached Clinton on his sexual peccadillos, you know, the Congress that was headed by serial philanderer Newt,and rapist of minor boys, Dennis Hastert. With the support of philanderer Henry Hyde.

So, yeah, Clinton, the third way triangulator. The one who brought people out of poverty. The one under whose administration the Internet became an economic powerhouse, and facilitator of free speech.

I'm so freaking tired of people running down Democrats who do what they have to do to make political progress. Frankly, it's a huge bore.

[wj]

worst President ever

I confess I have developed a knee jerk reaction. When someone (right or left) uses a term like this, either they're engaging in serious hyperbole (and whatever else they say should accordingly be heavily discounted). Or they are massively ignorant of history (and whatever else they say should be totally ignored).

You can make an argument for any particular president having been bad (or good). But nobody in the past century can hold a candle, when it comes to terrible (or corrupt, if you evaluate that separately), with at least a couple of 19th century examples. Buchanan and Harding being the obvious ones.

Just sayin'

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Also, HTH...

Was this supposed to be addressing me ("hope that helps" doesn't seem to fit the context)?

"How the hell", as in "how the hell do you get from an article pointing to negative impacts of widespread false reporting of atrocities to a claim that the article was attributing those impacts to accurate reporting of atrocities". I wasn't thinking of common acronyms hereabouts when I waxed vaguely prudish.

----

Clinton wanted to get elected so that he could move the country to the left. And he did get elected, but the country freaked out enough to elect a Newt Gingrich Congress, with an extremist Republican agenda

"To the left" is a meaningless statement in a vacuum. Left of H.W. leaves plenty of room on the center-right. Try harder. And while you're at it, if you want to argue I'm misrepresenting this point, do recall you'll need to explain why Clinton didn't achieve all the leftism his leftist heart had left during the first two years of his administration. You know, before the Contract With America.

...the Congress that was headed by serial philanderer Newt,and rapist of minor boys, Dennis Hastert. With the support of philanderer Henry Hyde.

...always a good sign when attacks on the character of someone's opponents characters feature heavily in a defense of a politician's policies.

So, yeah, Clinton, the third way triangulator.

Indeed.

The one who brought people out of poverty.

...via the welfare reform bill he signed, or the crime bill he (and Hillary) vocally supported and signed? Very pragmatism, much leftist, wow.

The one under whose administration the Internet became an economic powerhouse, and facilitator of free speech.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

I'm so freaking tired of people running down Democrats who do what they have to do to make political progress. Frankly, it's a huge bore.

Trust me, it's not as bad as seeing people endlessly argue that "political progress" is a worthy goal in itself without deigning to mention precisely what that progress is leading towards, and instead imputing that anyone who doesn't implicitly trust leaders by virtue of the letters after their name is a useful idiot for the Other Team - or worse, apparently, a bore.

[Marty]

NV, There are millions of young back men who have three meals a day, a roof over their head, a gym membership and a job to go to everyday because oh Clinton's crime Bill. That was certainly a way to reduce poverty and unemployment.

[Ugh]

I remember the day Hillary signed that bill like it was yesterday...

[Donald]

I had to read Marty's comment twice before I started laughing. That was funny.

Now another link--

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/syria-washington-obama-iraq-middle-east-intervention-assad-isis/505202/

So for our DC crowd the invasion of Iraq was a distant historical episode whose chief significance was it made us reluctant to intervene in the Middle East. And sure, we didn't intervene in Syria, because arming moderate rebels, some of whom later ally with Al Qaeda, doesn't count. Intervening from all sides has made the war escalate-- an armed revolt against Assad was almost guaranteed to do so despite all the predictions he would quickly fall. But the lesson drawn by our DC foreign policy experts is that the Iraq War made us too skittish about intervening. Black is white and intervention was not intervening.

Welcome to the Clinton Administration. And yes, I prefer her to Trump. There is at least a chance she will be constrained by facts and those nothingburger wikileaks show that she knows creating a no fly zone involves killing a lot of Syrian civilians.

[Donald]

On the 90's, the Clintons weren't old fashioned liberals pretending to be DOC types. They were DLC types, friendly to Wall Street after Bill's initial resentment about fornicating bond traders. Tom Friedman was the dispenser of wisdom and journalistic cheerleader for that ideology, where the financial markets are the infallible judges who put a golden straitjacket on what government can do and he still fondly hopes Hillary is with him.

[Donald]

Sapient, I cited a fictional example to be funny-- peaceniks were wrong on WWII. Lindbergh(spelling?) for example. Usually they are right and the list is a lot longer than Iraq and Vietnam when you include all the wars by proxy (Yemen right now, for example) and support for brutal dictators or "freedom fighters". And I wouldn't be so sure that the Balkans were a total success or that there wasn't some hypocrisy there too. Rwanda is a case where mass slaughter was actually happening-- I don't recall peaceniks demonstrating against intervention there, though as it happens there are some kooks on the far left with views on that. Debate about Rwanda to the extent I have seen any was on practicality. Stopping an undoing genocide is a bit different from jumping into a civil war, but subtleties like that often elude the heroic Western advocates of R2P.

Liberak humanitarianism is largely phony because they consistently spend time demanding that we intervene in very dubious ways while deliberately ignoring the cases where we could do some good by not actively supporting people who commit atrocities. Yemen is a classic example. I can't think of a single pundit who has criticized Obama for not intervening in Syria ( a lie, btw) who has said anything about Yemen. There is something else driving the call for intervention. Several different things, not all the same for different people.

[Donald]

Ongoing genocide, not undoing. Spellcheck strikes again.

[sapient]

Try harder.

I'm not going to try harder with you, NV. Nothing will make you happy until we have a political revolution! Whatever that means.

[cleek]

remember, nobody is voting for Clinton. they're all voting against Trump.

https://twitter.com/nickgourevitch/status/790514518719860736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[McKinneyTexas]

Ugh, if exposing a female breast anywhere, anytime is a constitutional right, fine by me. I wish they'd found this right 50 years ago. Will dress codes at work and in restaurants be enforceable after this ruling? Fun stuff when fringe stuff like this gets constitutional protection but political speech is under fire. Yay for progress!!

I'm not going to try harder with you, NV. Nothing will make you happy until we have a political revolution! Whatever that means.

NV and I disagree on just about every substantive issue there is except--guessing here, traditional civil liberties--but where he differs from Sapient is he lacks the slavish, uncritical regard for all things Democratic. He is a lefty who cares who speaks for the left. As a righty who feels the same way on the right, I get and respect where he is coming from. I also get and respect that he doesn't bend.

Sapient is an articulate apparatchik. He is no different in kind than those on the right who bend and contort as a part of their daily routine.

If NV were to vote for HRC--I'm mind-reading shamelessly here--it would be because he believed Trump had enough of a chance in his state that his vote might weigh in the balance. But, he'd be holding his nose. I have no issue with nose-holders on either side, even if I can't bring myself to pull the lever for either major candidate.

[Ugh]

Ugh, if exposing a female breast anywhere, anytime is a constitutional right, fine by me. I wish they'd found this right 50 years ago. Will dress codes at work and in restaurants be enforceable after this ruling?

The Constitutional right at issue is to be free from government imposed gender-based distinctions enforced under color of law. This case is a particular application of that right.

As you full well know (or should), it has nothing to do with private action and, even if it did, since workplaces and restaurants generally require BOTH men and women to wear, to use this particular example, shirts, it wouldn't be a problem.

I agree with the rest of your 10:46 am comment.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I remember the day Hillary signed that bill like it was yesterday...

The paranthetical applied to her strong advocacy of it. I debated making a complex clause even more complex by stipulating that she did not sign it, but figured I didn't need to. Alas.

[Ugh]

And I was mostly reacting to Marty.

[Ugh]

"Reasonable" and "sane" GOPers like Ryan and Pence are on board with this, or at least I've not seen where they're not. It's Ryan's state so he has no excuse.

Today's GOP: the party of vote suppression and torture. The Democratic equivalents are?

[wj]

If I were the students, I would have set up LOTS of tables around campus, for weeks, to get fellow students on board with mail balloting. Not an excuse for what was done; just a pragmatic response to it. (And it might even have resulted in some changes in the city government....)

[wonkie]

https://www.facebook.com/whochainsyou/videos/vb.978812565570678/1081526795299254/?type=2&theater&notif_t=live_video_explicit&notif_id=1477418405794421

Since this seems to be a thread to talk about whatever, this is a FB ad made by my publisher. Yes, I who cannot type, produced an entire book. And I am going to brag: Kirkus Review listed it as one of the best books they reviewed in 2015. It is a collection of of short stories. I did find three typos post-publishing and have to go get those corrected. The collection includes "The CHristmas Rats" which LJ was kind enought o post here sevearl years ago. I am donating any money I make to Safe Haven Kennels, a sancutary for unadoptabel dogs because they took in eleven dogs from a hoarding situation and will care for them for the rest of their lives.

[Marty]

I want to see the document to verify she did not sign it. I will suggest that, as many times as she has used her time as First Lady as part of her experience, it is not a stretch to hold her somewhat accountable for those actions.

[wonkie]

https://www.facebook.com/whochainsyou/videos/vb.978812565570678/1081526795299254/?type=2&theater&notif_t=live_video_explicit&notif_id=1477418405794421

The other link didn;t work so I hope this one does.

[wonkie]

It works if you open in a new window.

[cleek]

wow, awesome, wonkie!

[Nous]

Mail balloting looks to be a pain in WI. It's only valid for a year unless you can certify that you are unable to go to the polls because of age or infirmity. The application is also chock full o' technicalities that could get an application thrown out if the Municipal Clerk is so inclined.

That and it is also subject to the same WI ID restrictions that have come under such fire from civil libertarians.

[sapient]

Can't wait to read it, wonkie. Congrats on the accolades!

[wj]

I guess I get spoiled, living in a state which has made it into the 20th century when it comes to mail balloting.

I wonder if the Wisconsin law that talks about "due to age or infirmity" actually specifies advanced age. Or could the students argue (probably in court) that their youthful age is a valid impediment, too? Whimsical, I know, but....

[wonkie]

Well thank you anyone who buys it. Warning: most of the stories are sad.Well life for marginalized people is mostly sad. But thank you and the dogs are thankful, too.

[Girl from the North Country]

Interesting psychological insight into Trump gained from extensive taped interviews now handed over to the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/donald-trump-interviews.html?_r=0

Supports what I have long felt intuitively: that being humiliated as he was by Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner that time was a huge element of his determination to run. He wanted to be the one up there making his enemies look ridiculous.

[liberal japonicus]

If you weren't around when I posted Wonkie's story, it's here

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2013/03/christmas-rats.html

Wonkie is far too modest, here is the website

http://whochainsyou.com/books.html

[bobbyp]

Yes, I who cannot type, produced an entire book.

I must say, your printing is quite neat. Hats off to you, and yes, a very good cause.

[wonkie]

Thank you, LJ. BTW I published under a fake name because I did steal a dog. So...thanks again.

[sapient]

I did steal a dog.

You're amazing. Thank you for that. I think we're veering toward humane treatment of animals - in this country, anyway. Every step ...

[john (not mccain)]

"peaceniks were wrong on WWII. Lindbergh(spelling?) for example."

Calling a pro-Nazi fucknugget like Lindbergh a peacenik seems a bit of a stretch.

[sapient]

Pro-Putin "peaceniks" are also a little sketchy. Not that I'm accusing any peacenik present of that. Military policy isn't always about war versus peace.

[Count,e]

Congratulations, wonkie.

In reference to your typing skills, Truman Capote famously tossed out this bon mot on a talk show about Jack Kerouac's chops, the author of On The Road, among other works: "It's not writing, it' s typing."

Not a shot I agree with, at least when it comes to "On The Road", but if it makes you feel any better about your typing, I bet Kerouac stole a dog at one time or another as well.

[Count,e]

Congratulations, wonkie.

In reference to your typing skills, Truman Capote famously tossed out this bon mot on a talk show about Jack Kerouac's chops, the author of On The Road, among other works: "It's not writing, it' s typing."

Not a shot I agree with, at least when it comes to "On The Road", but if it makes you feel any better about your typing, I bet Kerouac stole a dog at one time or another as well.

[Count,e]

Congratulations, wonkie.

In reference to your typing skills, Truman Capote famously tossed out this bon mot on a talk show about Jack Kerouac's chops, the author of On The Road, among other works: "It's not writing, it' s typing."

Not a shot I agree with, at least when it comes to "On The Road", but if it makes you feel any better about your typing, I bet Kerouac stole a dog at one time or another as well.

[Countme-in]

I' d like to see Capote try typing on an iPad.

[Girl from the North Country]

wonkie, that is a beautiful story. I was lurking on ObWi at the time lj first posted it, but I don't remember reading it - perhaps I was away without electronic means, because I would surely remember it otherwise. Congratulations.

[wonkie]

to my amazement I have been posting here for fourteen years. How did that happen?

Anyway thank you everyone. Maye someday we can have an open thread where we share stuff we do (besides obsess about politics) because I'm pretty sure this is an accomplished group of folks who do all kinds of interesting things.

[Ugh]

My guess is that at some point it's going to be necessary to have a serious discussion about whether children should be banned from playing full pads organized tackle football.

[wj]

I think (American) football is going to start getting serious attention from child health advocates real soon. Followed, in microseconds, by outrage from those parents, in Texas and elsewhere (see Friday Night Tykes and Steel Country), who see it as just another attack on themselves and their culture.

But then, I've seen some things recently that suggest that soccer ("football" to the rest of the world) has similar, if smaller, problems. This, in Scientific American, suggests that there is a real problem. Especially for children, whose brains are still growing. So the coastal elites, who have been smug about their superior sport preference, may join the outrage.

Pretty clearly, basketball and baseball are far safer.

[Ugh]

Yeah I had seen that about soccer too. The difference there is you can fix it by banning heading the ball in youth leagues and still play the game pretty much the same as it is now - at least for kids.

Tackle Football, I don't know how you fix it and still keep the game recognizable - it seems to me you'd have to turn it into flag football (which I enjoyed much more than my one year of full pads tackle football, which was an awful experience).

[Ugh]

I thought lacrosse was the superior support preference of the coastal elite, at least on the East Coast.

And IIRC it has a concussion problem as well.

[cleek]

even basketball has a problem, for girls:

Basketball is the second-highest concussion risk sport for girls, with 5.6 reported for every 10,000 athletic exposures, the 2012 NAS study showed. That's double the rate for boys basketball.

[Ugh]

The horrible evil crooked Hillary's henchmen knows no bounds....

I am Ugh, and I disapprove of vandalism.

[Ugh]

Although this description of the event is awesome:

The man “suddenly picked up the sledgehammer and started smashing the bejeezus out of the Trump star,” Mr. Patten said.

Just how Carl Spackler would have described it.

[hairshirthedonist]

wonkie, an anthropology professor friend of mine posted a link to this on fb. I thought you, and others, might find it interesting.

[Ugh]

I can't imagine the chaos this would cause should it come to pass:

Thus, the bleakest possible scenario for Republicans isn’t that Trump loses badly and refuses to admit defeat. It’s that he rejects the notion that a fair election is even possible with him on the ticket, and announces he’s boycotting it. His supporters, only a small fraction of whom would have refused to vote for Trump turncoats down the ballot, stay home en masse instead. The Democrats take back the House.

That this is not an insanely far-fetched notion just shows how insane this Presidential election is.

[Ugh]

I'm sure if Hillary gives the GOP just a few small wins at the beginning of her Presidency, unlike the Usurping Kenyan Tyrant currently in the White House, this can all be avoided.

I'm glad open minded sounding Jason "Target-Rich Environment" Chaffetz is leading the charge.

[Donald Johnson]

Calling Lindbergh a peacenik probably is sketchy. I've heard he was borderline pro-Nazi, but don't know details or how fair that is. The fictional Star Trek example of Edith Keeler is actually a better one for sapient's side of the argument, assuming that there were people like that in real life and I assume there were back in the 30's (leaving aside the implausibility of someone running a soup kitchen in the depression having dreams of interstellar colonization and lecturing her guests on the subject). Anyway, she was the classic stereotype of a liberal disarming do-gooder and her success in the alternate time line led to a Nazi victory.

Anyone know of the names of some real life lefty disarmers in the 30's? I imagine they existed, but don't know enough about the period.

And now a practical look at the problems of imposing a no fly zone in Syria by some military guys--

http://warontherocks.com/2016/10/political-airpower-part-i-say-no-to-the-no-fly-zone/

[Donald Johnson]

Pro-Putin peaceniks exist--I see them in comment sections on far left blogs. Rightwing people too, of course Actually on the blogs I read I see more pro-Assad types. I don't mind nuance--people should want to understand why some ( or the majority according to some) Syrians support Assad. But this goes beyond that. They adopt the Assad viewpoint in its entirety. They fall into the classic far left trap--you start out opposing some stupid immoral US policy and you end up as the mirror image of the people you oppose. You would think that after decades of lefty idiots idolizing various communist groups people would have learned you can oppose American thuggery without endorsing other thuggery, but it seems baked into the psychology of a certain subset of people on the far left.

[bobbyp]

Nigel,

Another take on Stoller's article. It expresses succinctly my characterization of Stoller as "loopy".

Don't overlook the links.....

Thanks.

[Nigel]

Cheers, bobby.
Reading the links, Stoller doesn't seem so much 'loopy',as just as confused about the nature of the Democratic Party as everyone else.

From what I can gather, it's possible that there isn't, and probably hasn't been, a single coherently explicable party during the period we're talking about - and the coaltiion of interests necessary to any party in a system of two party national politics is significantly more fraught with contradictions than we're used to in the UK ?

What interested me about the Stoller article was the narrower point about the anti-trust tradition (which in itself isn't precisely a left/right issue).

I might just be confused myself, of course.

[Donald]

Looks like the next President is going to be heavily influenced by some corrupt dicatorship.

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/26/at-hillary-clintons-favorite-think-tank-a-doubling-down-on-anti-iran-pro-saudi-policy/

[sapient]

From what I can gather, it's possible that there isn't, and probably hasn't been, a single coherently explicable party during the period we're talking about

As a proud Democratic party apparatchik (thanks, McKinney!), I will say that since the 1960's, the Democrats have been a coalition devoted to addressing both racial and wealth inequality within the democratic system that we have, which means that they had to try to understand the zeitgeist. They "learned lessons" from many lost elections. In the case of Carter and Clinton, they were further right than many who voted for them (including me). But I understood (as I did when I voted for the losing candidates) that if any change would happen, it would be Democrats who would take us there.

So explicable? Yes. Move one foot forward, then the other foot, and see how far you can go.

Donald, I'm not reading the Intercept, no matter how much you pay me.

[Marty]

"the coalition of interests necessary to any party in a system of two party national politics is significantly more fraught with contradictions than we're used to in the UK ?"

I would say this is likely true. It seems in the places where a coalition government is formed the contradictions are often obvious between the parties, and the coalitions aren't necessarily lasting.

The challenge, we have discussed here in other words, is that the coalitions here need to be lasting to sustain a party structure. So trying to meld a broad range of ideas into a coherent face to the electorate is very difficult.

Also, the electorate chooses who they believe will most likely represent their goals, even when being told no one is. So the tents get crowded with people hoping to have a say.

To their benefit, the Democrats adopted the not religious stance(not antireligion, just clearly secular) purely in an attempt to broaden the tent after a few elections of not finding a base big enough to win, a way to be different that didn't impact other parts of their coalition negatively.

While this left the Republicans the staunchly religious, it also let them be portrayed as non-inclusive. It also left the evangelicals and others who had been a major force in both parties only one place to play thus ramping up their sense of need to dominate the party left.

The question for each party is how long it takes them to understand the changes in the culture, and what hasn't changed, and include those changes in their platforms and stances.

The biggest challenge for the electorate is that there is little chance to stem the tide of those changes with a minority party, or make them go faster with another minority party. I suspect, though I have no experience, that if minority parties in other countries begin to get traction for particular stances that ultimately drives the major parties to change.

[sapient]

To their benefit, the Democrats adopted the not religious stance(not antireligion, just clearly secular) purely in an attempt to broaden the tent after a few elections of not finding a base big enough to win, a way to be different that didn't impact other parts of their coalition negatively.

Marty, except for brief periods here and there, it was mainstream civics (and is Constitutional law) that there is a wall between state and religion. that's why Kennedy famously renounced "allegiance" to the Pope when making public policy.

Religion has been a huge factor in United States culture since its founding, but the Constitution explicitly states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." A lot of conservative religious folks figured out from the get-go that their particular take on God was not going to win the day, so best to keep religion out of government altogether. The Christian right is a relatively new phenomenon (although, unfortunately, it's been around for my adult life). It's weird when I talk to young people about the fact that in my public school elementary classes in Northern Virginia, there was nobody who questioned evolution. Of course, they all grew up with lots of people who do.

Democrats have consistently stuck with the "no religious test". What, are we originalists or something?

[Marty]

The Christian right is only new in the sense that it isn't just the standard for all parties. The country was founded largely by people who were incredibly religious. The separation of church and state was an institutional separation, not a cultural or political one. That wasn't ever an issue until the end of last century. What is now considered the religious right was, for most of America's history, the standard for almost everyone. Religious people weren't considered conservative, they were just your neighbor.

Evolution was a theory when I went to school, and it wasn't so generally accepted. So we certainly went to different schools.

[sapient]

The country was founded largely by people who were incredibly religious. The separation of church and state was an institutional separation, not a cultural or political one.

Oh yes it was. Again, the Constitution anyone? My own parents came from deeply religious Christian backgrounds (Catholic and fundamentalist Protestant) that were hostile to each other. Neither family thought that it was a good idea for religion to be a state matter, because everyone knew how divided people were on the specifics.

Evolution was a theory when I went to school, and it wasn't so generally accepted. So we certainly went to different schools.

Yes, we must have, but I doubt your memory of this. The Skopes monkey trial was a hoot for every single person I knew.