Party's over. Back to the regular grind.
Can somebody cover for me? I've really got to write a today.
The Maryland flag is another example of this. After the end of the war, the Confederate version of the Maryland was merged with the real version, to get the weird patchwork flag Maryland uses now.
In the Clausewitzian sense of war as merely policy by other means, the Union didn't decisively win until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.
Do you know what I saw at the official Washington, DC Memorial Day parade yesterday? Fucking Sons of the Confederacy from Maryland!!! Treasonous slaveocrat scum should not be allowed in the Memorial Day parade!
I can't really say I'm torn about this, but I'm not sure drawing a hard line on people who killed US soldiers is sufficient. Ari's book gets into all the places the name of the leader of the Sand Creek massacre got reused and it's not as if his behavior was more exemplary just because he was killing non-soldiers. And if we start getting into former military leaders who've killed in ways or with rationales that would currently be considered unacceptable, we might as well just start naming bases after desserts like those Android updates or whatever they are and then we could argue about things like whether "honeycomb" is really a dessert. Or we could just get rid of the military and the deification of military heroes completely, which would work for me.
2: We've been covering for you all weekend. Surely nobody thought that all those dumb jokes were my own.
Then the typo in 2 can be your fault also.
4: Yesterday a friend was complaining in the Other Place about exactly that. It was distressing - and still a little surprising - to see how many people argued with her on "defending their way of life" and "not about race or slavery" lines.
She and her husband are both big US history buffs and were able to respond with nothing but long well-sourced quotes from rebel leaders saying that yes, those things are exactly what the war was about.
5: Good people can disagree about whether the Union was good. But not about whether the rebels were evil.
I was thinking about this piece since I was pooh-poohed at the other place for agreeing with it. (I posted it with the same pull-out quote.) While I'm sure there were plenty of good reasons to let various southern politicians name their army bases after whomever they liked, it still seems to signal to black soldiers that "this place isn't for you, not really." Now, American society is filled with things that signal that to minorities of all sorts, but I've found in my limited white-lady experience with "this isn't yours" signalling that it is depressing as all fuck.
9: Oh, I'm not disagreeing about that part, I promise!
You know, the "this isn't yours" signaling is why it's important, rather than just being a weird historical anomaly. But I'd think the whole treason thing would be enough to make not specifically honoring Confederate generals for their military service against the US non-controversial. I don't need to dig them up and spit on their coffins, but not actively honoring bad acts seems like it should be an easy call.
5: I'm not a big fan of the military, or war, or apologists for war, but I think there does need to be an Overton window shift around the memorialization of the Civil War in this country. Hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers served, suffered and died to stamp out the venomous tyranny of the Southern slaveocrats. And yet, there is a huge popular discourse celebrating the efforts of Confederate soldiers to uphold slavery and privilege. The Indian Wars were fucked up, but there's no popular narrative that Custer was a really great guy who just happened to be on the wrong side of history. More to the point, we remember Custer due to his spectacular failure, but there's no analog to the constant and despicable celebration of successful Civil War generals for the guys who won wars against Native populations.
Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel!
While I'm sure there were plenty of good reasons to let various southern politicians name their army bases after whomever they liked,
So is that how it works, then? It's not the military itself that names them (whether de jure or de facto)? And is the idea that it's a back-scratchy thing? We'll put a base here and let you name it after your favourite traitor-in-defence-of-slavery if you vote for our big procurement project? If not, what's in it for the military?
...but not actively honoring bad acts seems like it should be an easy call.
Sure, phrased this way, who could disagree...?
14: Military base siting isn't really done to help the military. It is done to keep Congress happy.
12: Oh, I agree. (I had a dream last night about an old workplace that did a bunch of "this isn't yours" signalling at women, while in most ways (and even perhaps in many of the most important ways) was very welcoming.)
14: Apparently, yes. I'd never really thought about it before, but this is what I was told by people who will probably show up in the thread later.
14: Military base siting isn't really done to help the military. It is done to keep Congress happy.
I knew that with the siting, I just hadn't realised it extended to naming as well.
All those bases should be renamed after Confederate soldiers like these executed deserters:
Pickett was accused of war crimes for ordering the execution of 22 Union prisoners; his defense was that they had all deserted from the Confederate Army, and he was not tried.
Also, Minnesota is never giving that 28th Virginia flag back! We won it off the slaveocrat army fair and square. 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry FTW!
it still seems to signal to black soldiers that "this place isn't for you, not really."
Ayup. Especially at a time when tangible affirmative action efforts are slowing.
It looks like there used to be a policy nearly-explicitly stating Confederates were allowed. But Congress doesn't officially do the naming - this says it's currently an Assistant Secretary of the Army.
The apparently current policy says namesakes should be presented "as inspirations to their fellow soldiers, employees, and other citizens", but strongly discourages renaming.
Though I'm sure Congress could set a name by legislation if it wanted - no idea if it actually does.
22.2 is cool. Commanders who make selections should keep in mind that
the memorial program is designed--
(1) To honor deceased heroes or other distinguished men and
women of all races in our society.
(2) To present them as inspirations to their fellow soldiers, employees, and other citizens. but then the next section is about how renaming is usually too unpopular and controversial to be worth it, which I think is speaking to the same point we're discussing.
11: So would you agree that there's a difference between doing wrong things on behalf of a legitimate and at least arguably good-on-net government, and fighting for a bunch of evil vampires?
14: And the cult of the lost cause is quite strong within the US military.
26: I am unaware of governments not run by evil vampires, so I'm unable to comment. It's complicated?
I can see why it makes sense to differentiate between people who actively fought against the US government/military (Confederates) and people in the US military who did jerky/offensive/inappropriate things toward other people. I'd just expect there to be a lot of these memorials where you could indeed be inspired to do some horrible stuff if you truly took the people named as role models, Confederate (all) or otherwise.
I'm tempted to say that having the US military name something after them is exactly what they deserve.
the cult of the lost cause is quite strong within the US military
Yeah, this. While I agree that it's pretty offensive to still be valorizing Confederate anything, *so goddamned much* of what the US military does is criminal and horrible that this particular issue seems like criticizing Jeffrey Dahmer's table manners.
28: Some of them are run by morally ambiguous vampires.
One of the lines that was pushed at the Other Place seemed to be that you aren't going to win over anyone in the shame-and-honor-culture of the South with this kind of rhetoric. If that was the argument, it seems entirely misplaced. We do not need the white Southern male vote and are not trying to win it. We are trying to expose the poisonous ideology backed by far too many white Southern males so that they cannot win votes over from the rising demographic groups of color.
In general, you do not shame people to get then to change their own behavior. You shame to make an example for others and you shame to isolate people you want to disempower. Shame is a nasty and powerful weapon. We should understand what we are doing when we use it.
you aren't going to win over anyone in the shame-and-honor-culture of the South with this kind of rhetoric
The people still sporting Confederate flags in 2013 aren't going to be won over, period. They're morally stunted and proud of it. Watching them crawl out from under their rocks here in NC over the past year has been the most disheartening experience imaginable.
They're morally stunted and proud of it.
N.B. I feel this way about people waving the Stars and Stripes as well because I'm a commie traitor so, again, I find it difficult to work up much lather about military base names.
Ft. Dix is a great name, regardless of whoever Dix was.
The Internet has killed shame, hippies. Try another tactic. May I suggest delivering the cookies that you regularly deride people for expecting?
I like to think that at least some of the people flying the Confederate battle flag can be won over. I know people who grew up with the Afrikaaner mythology of the Great Trek and the Vow and managed to turn it around in favor of an inclusive world view. Some of it is just not thinking through the real meaning of what you are celebrating. There's certainly a hard core element that's never going to be turned because either they like the idea of slavery or they are celebrating the flag as a means of asserting identity, and neither of those is really amenable to turning.
The Internet has killed shame, hippies.
? Huge swaths of the internet are devoted to shaming people, with great effect, often over nothing particularly shameful.
I mean, some kid was bullied into a mental hospital because people thought his pretend light saber moves were awkward.
Americans in general, but particularly Americans in the south, have been taught for like 120 years that "honorable men caught up in a noble lost cause" is a perfectly valid way to conceptualize the vast bulk of soldiers in the confederacy (in school, in popular culture, whatever). Seems like it'll take a lot, and an awfully long time, to undo everything from Josey Wales to the Dukes of Hazzard to Firefly to, you know, most elementary school textbooks. Something like Django seems vastly more promising as a mechanism than NYT editorials in a world where college basketball fans support their (majority black) team with shit like this. (ref.)
One issue is that the US military is now and has been for a long time extremely disproportionately southern and Texan (both white and black).
38: An object lesson--none of the bullies in the horde had any reason to feel ashamed in that crush of fellow-feeling, mutual aid and solidarity. Cf. other contemptibles, like Penn State fans.
39 is right. Also, more controversially, the increasing interest by white northern/coastal liberals in these civil war issues has to do with the red state/blue state framing that's taken over our lives since 2000. It's very easy for Northern liberals to think of politics these days as basically insane racist southerners vs the forces of good, in a way that wasn't true in 1936 or 1976. I mean, to be clear, I think that American politics really basically does consist of insane racist southerners vs the forces of good, but it's not too surprising that these issues seem especially salient given the current political map.
Now, American society is filled with things that signal that to minorities of all sorts, but I've found in my limited white-lady experience with "this isn't yours" signalling that it is depressing as all fuck.
Yes, it really is (speaking also from limited white-lady experience).
Would we have a Fort Rommel? A Camp Cornwallis?
There's the USS Tecumseh.
American politics really basically does consist of insane racist southerners vs the forces of good
In presidential politics, okay, but only if you expand "Southern" to include nearly everything between Nevada and the Mississippi River all the way to the Canadian border. Moreover, watching the various state governments at work over the past four years, the number of places that get to feel morally superior to Alabama isn't that large.
45: Thank Christ I come from Massachusetts.
45: As you've said above, the closer one's own state gets to that better-than-Alabama line, the more depressing life in general is, though.
46: If it wasn't for you jerks, slavery would have ended in 1834.
48: Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of our low rates of homicide, divorce and teen pregnancy.
47: God, yes. The transition from "progressive for the South" to "easily the worst state government in the union" has been heartbreaking, and I'm pretty sure we're locked in until 2022 at the earliest.
50: I already told J,R not to liveblog my comments on my senators, but know that I hear you!
American politics really basically does consist of insane racist southerners vs the forces of good
Not true. There is also the rich Randian corporate overloads vs. the 99% and the Bible-thumping freakbats vs. fun.
Cultureless suburban assholes vs cosmopolitan hippies
53 -- correct. You have accurately described the three-front War of the Internet Liberal.
54 is not really a "front," more of a "theater of operations."
What's odd is how identification with the confederacy has become a kind of general "I'm an asshole" signal, independent of actual ancestry.
I recall seeing a surprising number of confederate flag bearing trucks in Ohio once you got away from the cities.
WTF?
By the way, Halfordismo also has plans for the South, though perhaps not as drastic as the forcible emptying of the plains and most of Texas to create the strategic bison reserve. There will also be a strategic barbecue reserve.
There will also be a strategic barbecue reserve.
"In the United States, the pig bomb went off after 1990."
I recall seeing a surprising number of confederate flag bearing trucks in Ohio once you got away from the cities.
It's not that odd for Ohio - big Copperhead base, barred free blacks, etc. But that does exist in unlikely states as well (even New England, I think).
61: I have seen one or two Confederate flag stickers in New Hampshire but, you know, come on. New Hampshire. [Sniffs.]
The Texas State Cemetery solves these problems by having not only graves for Confederates named and unnamed, but also a recently erected "Black Legislators" monument for Reconstruction era reps.
60 -- I loved that article. The tastiest invasive species of all.
I assume you hunt them with stone-tipped spears.
I grew up in the rednecky part of Connecticut(it exists), and confederate flag decals were a thing there. Its also a thing here in Maine, which is frustrating, because our Civil War monument is a statue of Our Lady of Victory for a reason.
For a lot of people the Confederate battle flag does not say "Southern," it says "Rural," so you get them in the rural parts of every state.
It only seems to say "asshole" because "rural" and "brazenly ignorant of history" is often enough to get you to "asshole."
Its also a thing here in Maine
Surely the ghost of Joshua Chamberlain will show up and lop their heads off with a sabre.
There's a Lee Park and a (Stonewall) Jackson Park locally. I've heard rumblings from people who want to change the names, but I think the left-wing politics splits between Changegood (racism, treason) and Changebad (historical accuracy).
65: A colleague in anthropology at Stuffwhitepeople Like University had an assignment every year where students had to skin a deer using the tools neanderthals used. It was actually pretty cool.
Driving on the LIE, I once saw a Calvin-pissing-on-a-confederate-flag decal. On a pickup!
69: Those parks were probably named in 1955. (I mean, plenty of things were named after confederate stuff long before Brown v Board of Ed., but lots and lots were named so the non-white would understand "Not For You.")
Joshua Chamberlain was an English professor at a small liberal arts college.
@69, Are you in Maryland? There's a Robert E. Lee park north of Baltimore.
There's a small park near the Johns Hopkins undergrad campus that has a monument to union soldiers on one side and a monument to confederate soldiers on the other. It says something interesting about the cultural difference between the two sides that the union monument features some generic infantrymen and some sort of "angel of victory" along with some boilerplate text about sacrifice & etc., while the confederate one is statues of Lee and (I believe) Jackson and the text is all about how awesome Lee is.
"First in war, first in peace, first in the chaining of his countrymen."
Changebad (historical accuracy)
I'm uncomfortable with damnatio memoriae as well. I hated seeing things like the Berlin Wall and Lenin/Stalin/Saddam statues destroyed. That's history you're erasing! Would our museums be better if no statues of Caligula remained?
Keeping the Berlin Wall intact would have been a very big imposition on the people who live in Berlin.
76 - Perhaps we could replace statues of Confederate soldiers with statues of Caligula.
70: The coolness diminishes as you get little tiny cuts all over your bloody hands and arms. Doing stuff with primitive tools is really hard work! I thought hunter-gatherer people were supposed to have a lot of free time to hang out, talk, dupe stupid white people looking for ayahuasca, etc.
79: Throw in a Saddam statue or two and I could be down for that plan.
Would our museums be better if no statues of Caligula remained?
I was at a military museum in Barcelona and learned that there was some controversy over what to do with a statue of Franco. They ended up keeping it, but putting in an alcove right next to the bathrooms. Which was kind of great.
OT, I suck for not making it to Unfoggedacon despite being nearby. I blame Franco and the confederacy.
This breaking news just in: Generalissimo Strom Thurmond is still dead.
We have a lake here named after John C. Calhoun, and there is a bit of an interest in changing it. You see confederate battle flag stickers on pickups in rural MN and WI too, which is beyond fucked up, but so are the people driving the trucks. I would suspect there's a pretty strong correlation between being a Minnesotan with a confederate sticker and being a Minnesotan who dies in a drunk snowmobiling accident, but I have not managed to find funding for my study on that subject yet.
I hated seeing things like the Berlin Wall and Lenin/Stalin/Saddam statues destroyed.
I thought they kept a sample piece of the Berlin wall standing somewhere out of the way.
OT: If, in the course of googling for a particular quote from J.L. Borges, one stumbled, irreproducibly, on a pdf copy of the Hurley translation of "Collected Fictions" (of which one owns at least a couple of physical copies), would it be immoral to put said pdf on one's iPhone and/or iPad? What about sharing said pdf with others?
That is the worst example of someone going presidential in at least two senses.
Damn it, Moby, respect my process.
Would it be better or worse if he posted as "President Zeus from 'No Holds Barred'"?
But, I insist you download the pdf.
Oh, I did. I was just wondering whether I ought to offer to share it with people as excitedly as was my first instinct to do.
Would it be better or worse if he posted as "President Zeus from 'No Holds Barred'"?
No love for president Whitmore from Independence Day?
85.2: Well, there's a section in a Microsoft campus cafeteria. That's pretty far out of the way.
39 and 42, plus a dollop of Flip's disdain for the author's tone, get at a lot of what I thought was wrong with the essay. (Also, I wasn't poo-pooing you, oudemia; I was poo-pooing the essay itself.) With that said, I think Thorn's point up in 5, if it's added to the mix, gets at my deeper misgivings about the way in which the official memory of the Civil War, at least among right-thinking progressives, suggests that it was a war of liberation and thus, by extension, a good war. It seems to me that it also of empire (Nat, think of the Dakotas hanging in Mankato, the Cheyenne and Arapaho dead desecrated at Sand Creek, the Navajos on the Long Walk, and then the entirety of the Indian Wars, which grew immediately out of Republican Party policies signed into law by President Lincoln.), and I wish more people thought of it in those terms. But honestly, I don't care that much and only said something out of a sense of obligation.
True, but I was thinking of this kind of thing
On August 31, 2012, Lister agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to commit mortgage fraud, in a scheme that led to $3.8 million in losses. He was charged with fraudulently buying homes in order to withdraw $1.1 million in home equity loans.
Just like a politician.
(I'm pretty sure that first came to my attention via chris y)
Are you in Maryland?
No, in Virginia.
John Adams Dix (July 24, 1798 - April 21, 1879) was an American politician from New York. He served as Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Senator, and the 24th Governor of New York. He was also a Union major general during the Civil War.
Moby is okay to keep admiring Dix and photos of Dix on the Internet. (If he does it to the sounds of Mr. Roboto while playing old video games, "Hick's picks: Dix pix, Styx, Qix!")
The Maryland flag is another example of this. After the end of the war, the Confederate version of the Maryland was merged with the real version, to get the weird patchwork flag Maryland uses now.
As with noted Confederate flag admirer and French racist slur user Gov. George Allen, born in Whittier, CA. (His father, Redskins coach George Allen, was born in Virginia but grew up in Michigan.) It's a signaling device, which is why those Heritage Not Hate people are so extra full of it.
No, in Virginia.
I guess if there's one state where you would expect to find things named after Lee and Jackson...
from the highway in Virginia I recall seeing a sign for a Stonewall Jackson shrine. Not a memorial or a museum, mind you, a shrine.
I hated seeing things like the Berlin Wall and Lenin/Stalin/Saddam statues destroyed.
You're still bitter about the timing of your undergraduate thesis, aren't you.
(If he does it to the sounds of Mr. Roboto while playing old video games, "Hick's picks: Dix pix, Styx, Qix!")
You are a god to me now.
If he does it to the sounds of Mr. Roboto while playing old video games, "Hick's picks: Dix pix, Styx, Qix!"
Yes, but on what operating system?
I too have seen the sign in 102.last - on the way to Fort A.P. Hill, no less. We considered following the signs just to be agog at the shrine, but didn't follow through.
(The purpose of that trip, organized by some clearinghouse for students looking to do conservationist labor over spring break, was laying out a trail in a semi-public area of the fort, in advance of a scout jamboree. It did not escape our notice that we were coming from a liberal liberal-arts college to do work on behalf of the ABCs of conservatism: the Army, the Boy Scouts, and at least a veneer of the Confederacy.)
The trip in 108 was also the last time I was in D.C., unless you count a wedding reception of which I missed virtually everything by getting lost.
There's still a rather large and impressively painted section of the Berlin wall along the river, in Friedrichschain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Gallery
A developer is presently trying to tear down part of it to build a luxury high-rise. If there's a better way to troll the Berlin citizenry, I can't imagine it.
91: If you need to test whether emailing works, I believe you have my address.
91: You know, I was actually just looking for my copy of that and couldn't find it.
I recall seeing a surprising number of confederate flag bearing trucks in Ohio once you got away from the cities.
Michigan too. I remember seeing "The South will rise again!" bumper stickers and thinking "You know you're not included when it happens, right?"
Maybe they were southern white guys who moved north.
Maybe by "rise" they meant "physically travel north".
Maybe they enjoyed being downtrodden and fled to be sure that they had not part of the rising of the south.
112, 114: If people were interested in receiving copies of a certain document, they might email somebody at commentername-at-gmail.com.
One of the stranger developments, I think, of relatively recent times is the homogeneous-ization of rural America. In 1950 rural white Iowa was very different than rural white Alabama which was most definitely very very different than rural white Maine. Now, you have a generalized identification with being a "Redneck"(tm), listening to country music,voting Republican, etc. I guess it's basically the same dynamic that has led to indistinguishable UMC lifestyles in a zillion cities in the US, but one would sort of expect the countryside to retain cultural differences for longer.
120: Perhaps it isn't so strange. They consume the same mass media and use the internet. Chain restaurants and mass produced food have bulldozed most local culinary traditions. One could go on and on...
Yeah, I mean, that's got to be right. In fact, the country in the US is arguably more homogenized than the City, since people are basically all now not only viewing the same media but shopping at exactly the same store, Wal-Mart. But still I have a romantic view that the country should be the repository of the quaint and local, so it comes as a surprise.
I was weirded out recently by a Confederate flag mixed up with a Toyota logo, somewhat like this one, on a pickup truck here in the People's Republic of Cambridge. I still don't quite get it, but it fits a little with 120 et al.
Quaint and local, like peace and quiet, are rare luxury goods in this era. Compare the disturbing (to me) clarity of somecommentator's observation in 2008 that the Obamas' stable, happy marriage of equals was an aspirational good inaccessible to most voters.
Quaint and local, like peace and quiet, are rare luxury goods in this era.
Nicely put.
Nothing says quaint like 640 acres of corn under a center pivot.
I would suspect there's a pretty strong correlation between being a Minnesotan with a confederate sticker and being a Minnesotan who dies in a drunk snowmobiling accident, but I have not managed to find funding for my study on that subject yet.
I'm willing to bet on a stronger correlation between confederate bumper stickers and deaths caused by late-season ice fishing.
Yes, there are national and regional cultures that overlie local culture. Local's not gone, though. I can go to Taco Bell, or I can go have a huckleberry milkshake: the existence of the former hasn't completely obliterated the latter.
I'm no happier about dumbshit Northern rednecks adopting Confederate paraphernalia than the next guy, but maybe if you think of it as diluting the Rebel brand . . .
OT, I suck for not making it to Unfoggedacon despite being nearby.
After the announcement of Unfoggedecon, I changed employers and moved to the Unfoggedeconville suburbs and I still didn't manage to make it. I had to go visit my nuclear family, which I left behind in Oldhometown for several months so the kids could finish out the school year.
I am very bitter about this.
Following the link in 98, I came across this, which suggests that maybe I really shouldn't join my husband's fantasy football league (after 6 years, I've finally moved up to number one on the waiting list).
While I'm derailing the thread, I should also add a written endorsement for the tv series discussed at the 'con (& earlier here by Halford IIRC), The League on FX.
Back on topic.
from the highway in Virginia I recall seeing a sign for a Stonewall Jackson shrine. Not a memorial or a museum, mind you, a shrine.
I have been to that shrine. I had seen it so often, and was so gobsmacked by the notion that eventually I had to stop and check it out.
Ranger: Stonewall Jackson blah blah blah... But since you're here, you probably already knew all of that already.
J, Robot (academic trained in the art of speaking confidently about unknown topics): Yep!
You might want to listen. It seems likely to me that the ranger might be bored out of his skull and taken to adding his own bits of Jackson/Lee slash fiction to the talk.
I am never persuaded by moral equivalence arguments that take the form "Well, Yankees are just as bad because ...". Furthermore, I am skeptical of arguments that attempt to justify the South's affection for its history by attempting to place that history in some other context. But I have to admit that apo makes a compelling case for the former (30, 34, 45) and the latter (76)
133: I seem to remember him as cute and earnest. Must be a ranger thing.
if you think of it as diluting the Rebel brand . . .
The local high school, T.C. Williams High, is best known as being the setting for the feelgood integration/football movie Remember the Titans. Which must have old T.C. spinning in his grave, because, to quote WaPo, "The school that bears his name is one of the most diverse in the area, yet the man the school is named after opposed school desegregation in the 1950s to the point that he fired a black cafeteria worker who sought to enroll her children in the district's all-white schools."
apo makes a compelling case for the former (30, 34, 45)
Easier to make the case when you hate everybody!
132 and previous: Sic Semper Tyrannis. Marker for the death of John Wilkes Booth in Va. (Click both the links.)
At least somebody threw a tire away there.
138's photos' combination is pretty great.
64: The tastiest invasive species of all
Rober Halford is short for Jack Merridew.
The tastiest invasive species of all
Man?
It's totally paleo and full of essential amino acids.
Halford, your ideas are good, but if you try to seize power I'm taking you down. I have hanging on my wall a gun with a single bullet. Under it is a sign that says "For Halford, if he betrays."
|| Anyone have any experience with repo guys? I'm trying to get my brother's car back in LA, but the repo guy seems to keep bumping up the storage fees. It seems like bullshit to me, and the guy was super rude and uninformative on the phone, but since he can charge more money every day he keeps it there's no incentive for him not to keep making things up. |>
145: I refrained from typing about 6 different Repo Man jokes. I got nothing.
94: Have you been following what we've been doing here in MN about the anniversary of the Dakota War hanging/concentration camp stuff? It's not enough in terms of accurately representing that particular facet of the larger genocide, but it is light years away from the popular perceptions of the Lost Cause. My friend was slightly involved with planning some of the remembrance activities, and found out in the course of it that she was descended from people who fought on the US side. It was a very sobering experience. She said that there were a lot of other US side descendants who were really interested in being part of the commemoration and hearing the Dakota side of the story and in some fashion working to make amends.
Also, my experience here in MN and WI is that the set of people who are dismissive of Indian claims of genocide, or even just mistreatment, maps very well onto the set of people who might have a confederate battle flag sticker on their truck. Even so, the whole question of the Indian wars is not nearly so politicized in their minds.
146: I got nothing.
Same here. I blame society.
"The Whole United States is Southern!"
130: Dutch Cookie?
Oops. I didn't see that I hadn't signed that.
Walt, you fail to understand the fundamental premise of Halfordismo.
Because I am always supportive of Halford and strong IP rights, when Halfordismo comes to fruition, I am going to be the Colonel of the Halfordian forces who yells "This man is a defeatist! Make him eat lots of gluten, then shoot him."
145 - The life of a repo man is always intense. The one time I had to get a car back like that, it wasn't a repo guy per se but an impound lot (my friend's parents had, awesomely, abandoned their car in the loading zone in the airport to catch a trans-Pacific flight for which they were running late). We showed up, we paid the (large) fine in cash, we took the car away. Is there anyone in LA who can go shove cash at the dude? Because only an asshole gets killed for a car.
Tangentially on-topic to the You Don't Belong subthread: Hilariously pitch-perfect video on the eternal question "What Kind of Asian Are You?"
145: Showing up in person and being a bit of a dick might be your best bet. As you say, the guy has no incentive to be helpful. Being a dick probably won't help but it can be sort of fun and the guy deserves it.
Now, you have a generalized identification with being a "Redneck"(tm), listening to country music,voting Republican, etc. I guess it's basically the same dynamic that has led to indistinguishable UMC lifestyles in a zillion cities in the US, but one would sort of expect the countryside to retain cultural differences for longer.
The places that are mired in miserable poverty are still pretty distinct.
"What If I Can't Pay My Medical Bill?"
Republicare allows you to volunteer as a lobbyist for the health-insurance industry to work off your debt.
The longer the repo man has your car, the longer he has to strip your engine. Or at least, that's how impound lots work.
I hadn't even thought of that one, I was focusing my worry on the gas being drained.
143: no.
147: yes.
In other news, I've been a job here at the university. If I didn't distrust you all, I guess I'd ask the mineshaft for advice. As it is, I think I'll shake my Magic 8 ball or something. (Yes, that's a euphemism.)
If you've been a job before shouldn't be much surprise, eh?
OK. Now I'm caught up.
Since you haven't moved, want to go to Pub Quiz?
That may be the fastest RofTFA in the history of the blog.
That video re: What Kind of Asian Are You? is disturbingly hilarious. The Bay Area park location is perfect. The Morris Dancing is particularly brilliant. Wow.
124
... marriage of equals ...
Give me a break, Barack is POTUS and Michelle is a housewife.
You can take a break any time you want, James. You don't have to ask.
I have seen one or two Confederate flag stickers in New Hampshire but, you know, come on. New Hampshire. [Sniffs.]
I like to believe that the Old Man of the Mountain collapsed under the weight of the state's obdurate cussedness.
We have a solution waiting out there. It could be instituted whenever.
170: It's still on the quarters. I had no idea it fell.
165.2: we're heading to Northeast Ohio, so I can't til late June. Sorry about that.
Also, I think I'm going to take the job. Thanks for all of your help.
Not a tough choice. When The Thunder From Down Under offers you a spot, you don't say no.
As long as nobody mentions a fucking pet, they have look for a new job.
179: concur in part (in other parts I can't parse your sentence).
176: the job mentioned in 161. It's here. No big deal. Mostly. Or maybe sort of. Whatever.
177: huh?
182: here here. My current institution. The job involves having more responsibility than a professor but less than the person in charge of the pepper spray canisters.
God, it's like no one knows the pet code anymore.
Golden Retriever = Department Chair
Cockatiel = Vice Provost for Graduate Studies
Pot-Bellied Pig = Night Secretary
Siamese Cat = Dean of Undergraduate Affairs
TFDU = Thunder From Down Under
181.last: send one! Then at least I'll know the details and everybody can rest easy.
When you've accepted this job, VW, can you arrange a sinecure for me? I'd be very appreciative, in a non-sexual way.
186: I'll see what I can do, neb. Do you have any useful skills?
187: Any useful non-sexual skills, that is.
||
So, it was lovely meeting you all this weekend, and now I'm trying to change my pseud to something with more than two letters. And not "yippee ki-yay [motherf---er]" (though I appreciate the suggestion). Anyway, is "torrey pine" ok with everyone? Just checking to make sure it doesn't interfere with any existing pseuds, the pet store codewords, the blog self-destruct mechanism, etc.?
|>
I make excellent jam, I'm a world-class nitpicker, I can fluently emit complex sentences ad libitum, I prepare a mean index, etc. etc. etc.
188: I'm not sure congratulations are in order. I haven't said yes yet and might not.
189: there are other people he could service, you know, so sexual prowess is probably a good skill to list.
I'm sure we'll have nits that will need picking. We'll be in touch.
I like "torrey pine". I'd like it better if it involved a Y and a K in some obvious way, for continuity, but it does have a nice sound to it. Yorrey Kine?
torreY pinK would have the added advantage of confusing some into thinking that we have a commenter with an IRL name of Yerrot Knip.
192.1: It might be an honor just be offered the position, might it not?
Seriously, I went through the Y and K sections of the dictionary. It's not so easy. For continuity, I can sign as "[new pseud] (formerly YK)" for a while?
I thought of "cYpherpunK," but that would probably be better for a bOING bOING handle.
Yon Yacon Kingleheimmer Schmidt
Come on, it has to sound nice. The best YK-variant I came up with was Yonder Knoll, which is great except that I'm not really into old and middle English.
201: maybe? Unfortunately, I'm pretty cynical about the quality of the UC administration. Not to mention the whole not wanting to be part of any club that would have me as a member.
On the other hand, sure, being recruited for a gig like this is better than a kick in the pants. And I think I'm interested in the task that needs doing. Plus, taking the job would provide me with a very elegant solution to a significant dilemma I've been facing -- how to extricate myself from commitments that have become increasingly unpleasant over the past couple of years -- so I might do it for that reason alone.
I second Yack the Knife.
To Heebie: how's Ace? Does she miss me?
201: maybe? Unfortunately, I'm pretty cynical about the quality of the UC administration. Not to mention the whole not wanting to be part of any club that would have me as a member.
On the other hand, sure, being recruited for a gig like this is better than a kick in the pants. And I think I'm interested in the task that needs doing. Plus, taking the job would provide me with a very elegant solution to a significant dilemma I've been facing -- how to extricate myself from commitments that have become increasingly unpleasant over the past couple of years -- so I might do it for that reason alone.
how to extricate myself from commitments that have become increasingly unpleasant over the past couple of years
You've already stopped blogging a couple of times already!
241: I should have gone with Y-to-K.
Sorry, I didn't mean to derail the thread like this.
Anyway, I have to go; I'll wait until tomorrow to pull the trigger on the new pseud.
To Heebie: how's Ace? Does she miss me?
Does she ever! What a little crybaby.
247: Something funny happened with 218 and 224. I got a screen I'd never seen that said something about "Moveable Type".
I mean I didn't know that you specifically got that message, but I knew it was happening.
Is 257 to 256, or a pseud suggestion?
I thought it was a problem on my end. My bandwidth sucks and my wife is watching Netflix.
Yeah, I Know is actually an excellent pseud.
YK had a pseud of such brevity
It provoked every manner of levity
The hints he solicited
Only elicited
A thread of substantial longevity
Seriously, though, just use torrey pine.
Yard Ketzal
Yolo Kokonino
Ymmanuel Kant
Yeoman Knickerbocker
Yamkipper
Yawning Kasm
Earboo
Though nosflow told YK it's fine
to rename himself torrey pine,
Heebie-Geebie, distressed
by this break from the past,
YKlept him Yglesias Klein.
225.2: You're going to stand for the Chiltern Hundreds?
P.S. Sorry I took "keyaki" first, torrey pine. Sad Ent face.
Yeasty Knickers
Ygrecque Kardashian
Yiminy Krickets
283: Well then it's a good thing I used the homophonous "yklept" instead
On second thought, maybe it's better to wrap this up tonight.
You are all insane.
fake accent adopting a fake accent in 293 is what got me.
Bringing us back to the OP, YK could also be Yankee Kvetcher.
Is 'Unfoggetarian: "Pause briefly, then go in" (9)' too similar to use?
"Yours, Kobe" would've been more appropriate for that comment, though.
Yankee Killer (apologies to Frank Lary)
I have lots of thoughts on the issue in the the OP, but I think I'll put them in a post on one of my own blogs, if I decide to talk about the subject at all.
I don't have any pseudonym suggestions, though.
151: Don't argue with me, Halford. Argue with the gun.
Guns don't argue with people; people argue with people.
Younger Kurl
Yuri Keller
Yodel Kampf
306: Argue with the gun.
Not to mention the line.
"Yankee Killer" has me imagining Ms. Hepburn intoning
"Faah, faah bettah..."
So, thanks for that.
I change my vote from whatever it was to Yonder Knave. That's the best.
Catching up on the thread:
183 The job involves having more responsibility than a professor
Why would you want that?
One issue is that the US military is now and has been for a long time extremely disproportionately southern and Texan (both white and black).
Are you suggesting that more nattering nabobs of the northeast should be compelled to join? The all volunteer force tries to recruit in all areas.
