photographed in a douchey light
That's what happens on a summer's eve.
I'm looking at the first one and wondering about the evidence it provides in regard to the last Unfogged pubic grooming post.
I guess now I don't need to ask about whether or not I should open that link at work.
I wonder if I'd be able to open it in Arrakis.
If I try hard enough, I can see how photographs of hundreds of naked people might be art, but political? How the hell is it going to affect the outcome of the RNC if a hundred women get their kit off outside before it starts?
Sheesh, chris y, it's like you've never heard of chaos sex magick.
6: I am less eye-roll-y about Tunick's work than many other folks, but I too fail to see the point of this. It sounds as meaninglessly dumb as glitter-bombing.
6:
"This was awesome," says Q Cooke, 42. "We put some feminine energy into this world, shined some positivity into the world. I sit at home and I watch everything happening and it feels like there's nothing you can do but watch. But this was something I felt like I could actually do. I want to bring about the change and if this, in some way, does that, then I've accomplished something."
Apparently like that?
It is a hell of an "if" though.
but I too fail to see the point of this
What have we come to, as a people, as a nation, and as a blog, that "Titties! Hooray!" is insufficient justification?
Yeah, looking back on the protests here in 2008, there wasn't that much change achieved except in the local political scene, but maybe if we'd had naked people it would have been different.
I am really of two minds about the whole "protesting at conventions" thing - I don't know whether it really serves to delegitimize anything, which seems like the only desirable outcome. I can see why people feel moved to do so - certainly, I felt pretty repulsed by the fact that St. Paul brought the republications here, and they were gross (I had a friend who was hired as temporary hotel staff at one of the posh hotels and who was subtly encouraged to have sex with conference guests....for free, even! She didn't, and was fired.)
But when I look back, it mainly put a lot of people at risk of police violence and put a lot of people through a very long trial just to get some bullshit charges dropped. I made lots of new friends in the run-up and aftermath, though, so at least someone got something out of it.
And various Unfoggers kindly donated to the legal fund!
I tend to think that it makes sense to be militant, get arrested, etc, sometimes, but conventions are just big dumb dog and pony shows anyway and not worth it.
Meanwhile, I hope no one gets shot or beaten to death in Cleveland - I don't think I'd go even if I had the vacation time.
Going naked as a protest may not always be terribly effective, at least in my town.
A Cambridge academic walked in naked at a meeting at the Faculty of Economics in protest against the results of the EU referendum.
...
Ms Bateman, a lecturer has researched the development of the European economy, sat at the two-hour meeting without anyone mentioning her nudity they just went on with a normal meeting about tripos and marking.
Nigel Knight, director of studies at Churchill College and the chair of the meeting, glanced at her and then said to his secretary: "I think we need some cups for the coffee" and everyone else just stared straight ahead.
University of Michigan does a yearly naked mile, which struck me as terribly cool and collegiate my first year there. I told a friend of mine about it who went to I-forget-where - Brown? Wesleyan? - and she replied, "Oh yeah, we do that monthly" and I felt rather deflated.
13: The hometown of Monty Python still has it.
2-3 times/month at Rice. (Depending on if the month has a 31st day).
It may actually have been Rice, now that I think about it. I was hanging out with Rice friends a lot that summer.
That second link is an great example of how to make me want to kill the web designer. What flashy, stupid, ugly crap. Titties, Boo!
I've never had a naked woman appear at any meeting I've ever been to, but I'm pretty sure that pretending nothing is at all different from other meetings is what would happen here also. At least among the men.
I think having the women hold mirrors is interesting. I'd like to see his photos to see if he did anything with the mirrors other than have them hold them up. There's a lot of potential there.
21: Were they trying to set something on fire?
13 might be the best example of British understatement I've ever heard.
22: That would be one cool thing they could do. Set Trump's hair on fire from across the street. That I'd pay to watch.
13: [internal monologue of half the people there] "...oh god don't respond pretend it isn't happening or [batty senior professor] might think it's a good way to get attention and start doing it to."
20: I would also stare straight ahead, but I would try hard to get a seat directly across the table from her. Because I'm a feminist.
Depending on the style of chair, you could also try to find a place behind her. But, I'm still wondering if anybody would say anything.
I have to say that I'm shocked that nobody even offered her a cardigan. Some of those old buildings in Cambridge are bloody freezing.
The Earl of Cardigan is married to a woman from Flagstaff.
On the one hand, I really do want a convention at which nobody gets hurt. On the other hand, unless something newsy happens, the media will fill space with bloviation about Cleveland.
Apparently due to vagaries of the selection process, the entire California delegation are (brit.) Trump supporters, not just pledged to him, so they're the enforcers and seated prominently in the front row (rather than, say, Ohio).
Butternut country? I don't even know what that means and presumably practically live there. (Thinking buckeye and got the wrong tree? I don't even know!)
33: I'm also unfamiliar with that phrase.
Googling I came up with this --
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/CuisinesInAmerica
The southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are "Butternut Country", with a pretty close cultural affinity with the South
Oh, as in, land of Copperheads and near-treason?
Yoni's an historian -- maybe he doesn't realize that this is no longer in common use or else he's showing off --
My ancestor who lived in the area during the Civil War sided with the Union and, apparently as a reward, got sent to Nebraska.
Someone I know is in the last link! I thought it was super cool and the reports back were really interesting.
Nebraska, font of level-headed progressives.
From the sound of it my family could have been Butternuts. "Blacks do all the crimes. They're chanting 'kill the cops.'" My effective debating strategy consisted of eventually shouting when did my family became a KKK rally. I mean holy shit.
Trump and Trumpism must be crushed.
And nuclear bombers. Because sometimes talking quietly isn't enough.
And brooding male icons, like me and Brando.
Depending on how this week ends I may not come back next year. Or just make it a very short visit and spend the rest of my leave travelling with Chani.
If you don't return at least once a year, the protection Dumbledore placed on you will fade away.
46: Sorry, Barry! That sounds horrible.
48: Hey, let's leave the genocidal stuff for the other side.
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43 reminds me, all the disputed rocks and sandbars in the South China Sea have strangely awesome names. Scarborough Shoal. Second Thomas Shoal. Fiery Cross Reef. I'm sort of hoping the big one kicks off over the latter, just so that future high school students will wonder how in hell the Great Fiery Cross War had anything to do with the KKK.
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50 was an ungenerous interpretation. I'm sure Barry meant that wants to end the idea of Whiteness.
Kill all white people but himself. Right.
Peep, I'm afraid if you're hoping to keep Tigre's affections, you're going to have to get a little less judgmental about genocide.
Barry is my brother. I'm extra glad not to be home this year, because I'm sure a big chunk of my family will be Trumpists, and likely Brexiters as well.
Pretty happy that I managed to not bring up politics with my in-laws when I had three of them as house guests for five days. They're from rural upstate NY; it's obvious which way they're going to vote, and equally obvious their state will vote the other way.
56: I would hate that so much. It's horrible enough for me knowing that the mechanic I rely on is almost certainly a Trumpist.
That's the breaks when you're an android.
WE DRIVE YOUR AMBULANCES. WE HAUL YOUR TRASH. WE GUARD YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP.
30. And his daughter is a D-list celeb with addiction issues. I wonder what the commander of the Light Brigade would have made of it all.
He probably wouldn't want you to reason why.
He would want you to immiserate Irish people, though. Get to it.
Also, kill Russians. But apparently no genocide on this thread, so.
That's how the guy in 40 wound up in Kentucky.
Speaking of the RNC I was slightly gobsmacked by this story.
The Cleveland police union is calling for Ohio Gov. John Kasich to suspend Ohio's open carry law for the Republican National Convention in the wake of the shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sunday that killed three police officers and left several others wounded.
"We are sending a letter to Gov. Kasich requesting assistance from him," Stephen Loomis, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, told CNN. "He could very easily do some kind of executive order or something -- I don't care if it's constitutional or not at this point. They can fight about it after the RNC or they can lift it after the RNC, but I want him to absolutely outlaw open-carry in Cuyahoga County until this RNC is over."
...
Emmalee Kalmbach, a spokesperson for Kasich, issued a statement rejecting the request: "Ohio governors do not have the power to arbitrarily suspend federal and state constitutional rights or state laws as suggested."
By immiserating Irish people or by failing to kill Russians?
66: Gobsmacked that the Cleveland police don't understand the constitution or that Kasich likes guns?
55: Thorn, Tigre and I have a mature relationship, and we've learned to accept our differences.
69. Cardigan's commanding officer and brother in law Lord Lucan (not that one) was better at immiserating Irish people- famous for it, in fact.
More family iber. More about the war on cops. God help me.
Gobsmacked that the Cleveland police don't understand the constitution or that Kasich likes guns?
Just at the general, "this does not feel like 'politics as usual'" aspect of it.
Just at the general, "this does not feel like 'politics as usual'" aspect of it.
Has anything felt that way this year on the Republican side?
I'm pretty sure that even if Kasich did want to stop open carry, there's nothing he could do. They've got a special "security zone" where plenty of regular laws don't apply, but there was a successful lawsuit to shrink it in size and it was never anything close to county-wide.
More about the war on cops.
I do think this is the only thing that can give Trump a victory. Against international terrorism, he sounds like a clueless yahoo. Against a bad economy, he's going to sound unstable. But against cop ambushes? His wheelhouse, because that's what his schtick is made for. I mean, maybe he overplays it and convinces people he'd declare martial law, but I think cop ambushes are visceral and immediate in a way that makes him seem non-insane to a chunk of voters who are otherwise uninterested.
I may and probably am blind to this since I don't think I know a single Trump voter, but 78 seems wrong. If "war on cops" is just a synecdoche for your racism then you're always already a Trump voter and would have voted for Trump anyway. I don't think that more reasonable people who might be persuaded by "things are out of hand, we need some good sense rules to prevent things like cops getting shot" are particularly attracted to Trump, since he seems like a crazy person who is causing chaos and making things worse.
Alternately, who the fuck knows. I sure don't.
In re this week:
"One false move and we could have a farce an apocalyptic catastrophe on our hands: hate and anger in such storming volumes as to cut open this world of appearances and bare the naked sinews of bloody reality."
79: Basically I'm thinking of well-meaning centrists who generally find Democrats more congenial, but aren't at all ideological, and who'd react to a series of cop ambushes by thinking, "maybe Trump was right all along." Basically seeing it as an election between #BLM and cops. I wouldn't put money on the former in that election.
Contrast that with ISIS: only a rabid xenophobe would view the election as being between pro- and anti-ISIS candidates. Instead, it's between the sane person who opposes ISIS and the rambling nutjob who says he opposes them more. On the economy, if you're not already convinced by the guy who keeps talking about "winning", having him say it while the stock market crashes doesn't make it sound smarter. But HRC clearly will the #BLM-associated candidate, and a lot of forces will be working to argue that you can't be pro-#BLM while also being anti-war on cops.
I told you, Tom. Great Fiery Cross War. You read it here first.
Maybe Trump is thinking that it's 1968 again, and who better to play the part of Nixon?
And I'm sitting here so anxiously wondering what price I have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.
79: Clinton (and anybody else running for president) needs to get a certain non-trivial number of racists to vote for her in order to win. This isn't as hard as it sounds since even racists have other priorities (like earning a living or not going broke because they got sick). But the more the campaign makes race a salient issue, the more racists will vote their racism. And probably the more non-white voting will increase, so that may offset.
83: And every couple of hours Hillary or Nancy or Barack or Michelle or Joe email me and say, "Just another $20, peep! We're counting on you!"
it's 1968 again ... what price I have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice
Baby boomers pulling up the ladder yet again.
OMG, Trump for real named Omarosa as his director for African-American outreach. This happened.
Could someone please explain Omarosa to me? This has been a punch line the whole campaign and I have no idea why.
88: Trump has zero percent approval among black voters in Ohio? Surely that's parody. Zero percent??
The case against Trump as president is vastly overdetermined.
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Good lecture on the history of austerity. Should read the book I guess.
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89: She's from Youngstown, just south of Cleveland.
She was the most hated person in America during some period maybe 10(?) years ago.
She was a character on his TV show best known for being unbelievably arrogant and hated by absolutely everyone.
But he plays the Heel too, so it's pretty compatible.
Per the Guardian livefeed, the NeverTrump delegates tried to get a full floor vote on the convention rules, but failed.
I tried to fly by flapping my arms, but the Guardian wouldn't cover it unless I tried it while jumping from something high.
So with the margin of error there's a significant chance that Trump will receive a negative number of black votes?
Barry, your experience of course sucks, but I'm curious, do you notice your family being more openly racist than before - the hypothesis, fitting various recent reports, that Trump has "given people permission to speak out loud, removed the shame associated with being prejudiced"?
Omarosa! This is Peak Trump. It's all downhill from here.
99 I think that has something to it. And they're frightened.
Now they're sitting down to O'Reilly...
Fox News has really done a number on their minds.
If it makes you feel better, apparently they're just waiting for the convention to end before the fire Roger Ailes.
105. Black people. Muslims. Change. Death.
(Just trying to cast the water of your land, here.)
That's not a phrase I've heard before.
I assume it means "piss in your garden".
A simple 'yes' would have sufficed.
Wake Johnson with thy mocking! I would thou couldst.
Googling
Steve Loomis Obama
or
Steve Loomis Tamir Rice
is edifying.
Does Steve Loomis actually care about constitutional or legal rights?
It seems like not a single person here is watching the convention coverage.
I'm consulting for pharma, which is close enough to evil for my purposes.
I bet those guys cast water all the time.
115: I'm following Twitter, if that counts. They're presenting a diverse field of stab-in-the-back narratives: Benghazi, immigrants. Trump is giving multiple interviews while the convention is being televised (O'Reilly, Golf channel).
I'm watching. I feel for the woman whose son died in Benghazi, but damn! The Republicans are going all in on their message of "Be afraid! Be very afraid!"
I cannot watch the convention coverage. I figure I'll hear all about the highlights (or the lowlights, I guess I should say).
Sen. Jeff Sessions is a remarkably bad speaker. Trying his damnedest to coin the phrase "Obamatrade."
I know there are people I dislike more than Giuliani, but whenever his ugly face is on my TV, I can't think of them. What a ghoul.
Congressman Steve King is tired of snark about old white Republicans. After all, can you even think of any important contributions to civilization made by other sub-groups?
Rudy Giuliani should have his blood pressure checked, stat.
So why did they decide to have this thing in Cleveland, anyway?
Specifically, a swing state that they basically can't win without and that would be ideally persuaded by the sort of pragmatic, establishment candidate the accelerated primary schedule was to deliver the nomination before a bruising fight could hurt party unity.
They wanted an ugly city to make the candidate look better.
126, 127: Sure, but even within Ohio there are other cities that aren't as hostile to Republicans.
But if people aren't hostile to Republicans, they won't hold massive street protests that Republicans believe will benefit Republicans.
I wonder if Columbus has the hotel space. Or Cincinnati.
Trump's WWF stage-entrance was amazing.
Columbus metro is about the same size as Cleveland. Cincinnati is slightly bigger.
Cleveland doesn't actually have it. People staying in Akron and Sandusky.
134: But Columbus always had a bug in it's ass about not having all the facilities that Cleveland and Cincinnati had. They had to freebase a professional sports team to feel better about themselves, but even then it didn't hide the emptiness of not having three professional sports teams plus a Hall of Fame and other tourist things.
137: Well, they do have a giant university with all the sports teams that entails.
But not necessarily the best measure. Akron and Dayton SMSAs both 700-800K and close enough to be included in Cleveland and Cinci respectively. Northern Summit County (akron) is more Cleveland suburb than Akron. Columbus does have Springfield (140K) at a similar distance.
140 to 138.
Also, Pittsburgh's MSA is bigger than any of those places in Ohio and it was still deemed to have too few hotel rooms to be a site for the Democrats.
137. And historically much smaller, but catching up with the Big Education/Big Government combo while the other two relatively stagnated.
141: Maybe Democrats are just better at math.
Although it is actually true that the Democrats have way more delegates than the Republicans.
Huh, Trump is on his third wife, just like me.
Under Sharia, you're allowed four.
Newt is only allowed three because he's opposed to Sharia.
Trump, on the other hand, is opposed to Sharia so he can have five if he wants.
A brief instant of bigamy saves the day.
I keep meaning to Google that but it's too late for today. Goodnight moon. Goodnight room. Go fuck yourself red balloon.
Goodnight Moby. Definitely do Google Bob Denard when you wake up. Totally worth it.
People seem relieved to have something merely embarrassing for the campaign to talk about (Melania Trump swiping paragraphs from Michelle Obama in a previous convention) in preference to the disturbing/depressing xenophobic nationalism that was most of the rest of the evening.
Absolutely.
So, did anyone see Commander Zinke at the RNC?
I just watched some clips from the RNC and that was even more unsettling than I was expecting. They really are an open white nationalist party at this point.
But wait, did they have Melania copy the First Lady to make at least some of her speech go viral?
This, friends, is what eleventh dimensional chess actually looks like.
People seem relieved to have something merely embarrassing for the campaign to talk about (Melania Trump swiping paragraphs from Michelle Obama in a previous convention) in preference to the disturbing/depressing xenophobic nationalism that was most of the rest of the evening.
What about MULTIPLE speakers leading chants of "LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!" What sort of election has that sort of thing coming from the official spokespeople of the party? Elections in Zimbabwe? Somewhere that election outcomes are actually dictated by who has the toughest street gangs, that's for sure.
And the speech contained an actual RickRoll.
160: Yes. That is the one that really has me baffled. The equivalent of some hostage speechwriter blinking "Help me" in Morse Code?
But my God what a horror show the whole thing was.
Could it really have been otherwise, though?
My current favorite of the #famousmelaniatrumpquotes is "I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the tannhauser gate."
154: I think disturbingly people are just bored of talking about the horror show. There are only so many times you can make the "It sounded better in the original German" jokes before you're ready for something new.
There's got to be a "Whitey speech" joke out there somewhere.
161. I can't think of a more plausible explanation. Maybe she has a team of writers who are competing to see what they can get past her.
145: I don't think I understand the WWF/WWE distinction you are trying to draw. I was never a huge wrestling fan. What am I missing?
145: I don't think I understand the WWF/WWE distinction you are trying to draw. I was never a huge wrestling fan. What am I missing?
I don't think I understand the WWF/WWE distinction you are trying to draw.
WWE doesn't allow double posts, but WWF does.
My brother explained the difference to me once, but I forgot. I don't live in Georgia so I don't need to know in order to have something to say for small talk.
"How about those Braves? And the oiled-up muscle men in tiny, tiny briefs that men have an interest in for reasons that must not be sexual because sometimes they hit each other with folding chairs?"
"Is that a picture of your wife on your desk? Let me compliment her appearance without sounding like I'll try to sleep with her."
Giuliani's speech sounded better in the original Italian.
All this focus on Mrs. Trump's speech is distracting from some truly horrible speeches (and crowd reactions).
107 Not sure what you're getting at? Verbally?
The WWF is the World Wildlife Foundation.
176: Sorry, that's wrong -- World Wildlife Fund.
176/177 read like a joke, but they really did change the name of the wrestling organization from WWF to WWE after the World Wide Fund for Nature sued them in the UK.
https://www.quora.com/When-did-WWF-become-WWE-and-why
Huh, I figured it had to do with the time they admitted that wrestling was fake for tax reasons.
178. Even weirder, the conservation organisation changed its name from World Wildlife Fund to World Wide Fund for Nature in every English speaking country except the US and Canada.
Because fuck nature. I'll help the wildlife, but only in spite of the fact that it also helps nature.
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Is Ume around? I have a question about the direction of Japanese cooking in the last 25 years.
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178: huh, that's interesting. I always thought they were just two different, equally comical wrestling leagues.
In light of that, given Trump's age, I'm going to stand by my assertion that it was definitely a WWF entrance, not WWE.
178: huh, that's interesting. I always thought they were just two different, equally comical wrestling leagues.
In light of that, given Trump's age, I'm going to stand by my assertion that it was definitely a WWF entrance, not WWE.
178: huh, that's interesting. I always thought they were just two different, equally comical wrestling leagues.
In light of that, given Trump's age, I'm going to stand by my assertion that it was definitely a WWF entrance, not WWE.
178: huh, that's interesting. I always thought they were just two different, equally comical wrestling leagues.
In light of that, given Trump's age, I'm going to stand by my assertion that it was definitely a WWF entrance, not WWE.
182: Here, and happy to be distracted from work. Can't promise to have the answer, though.
Weird headline style of the day: Ms. Trump in '16 Sounded Like Mrs. Obama in '08. Why would Michelle be Mrs. and Melania Ms.? Was her maiden name also Trump?
AB lived in Wakayama for 2 years in the early '90s, and has always reported that Japanese food simply isn't spicy/hot. Not that Japanese don't eat spicy food, but that it's not part of the native cuisine. So the question is whether this is still true. Because it occurs to me that American cuisine is much spicier than it was in the early '90s.
This is relevant to a review, where we ate at a new izakaya and had an eggplant dish that was fantastic, but AB declared was also spicier than anything she ate in her 2 years over there. I don't want to mischaracterize if that's an out of date referent.
Huh, quadruple posts are interesting.
The usual geniuses on Facebook have settled on an approach: dismiss the idea of plagiarism with "Oh, good thing you didn't care about plagiarism when Joe Biden did it 29 years ago." You mean when it ended his presidential campaign? Glad you agree on what should happen next.
AB is right that traditional Japanese food is never spicy hot at all, though you do get a kick out of wasabi and the occasional sprinkle of sansho pepper. I didn't notice any change in that over the two decades I was there, though there is a greater variety of more authentic hot food from overseas (Thai/Indian/Mexican etc.) available these days. What was the eggplant dish - could it have been Korean-influenced?
OK, good to know.
The dish was Nasu Shigiyaki, with a saikyo miso sauce; nothing Korean-seeming about it. The place is run by a guy who used to do an Asian fusion place, and I was using this dish as an example of how he's staying within Japanese cuisine but playing at the edges.
At the edges of Japanese cuisine is seaweed or tempura.
Though a quick look through the Japanese version of Cookpad has turned up quite a few recipes for "Spicy aubergine with XXX" (where XXX can be beef, bell pepper, pork, or something else). Some use shichimi (seven-spice) or even harissa, but most look quite Chinese-influenced.
193: I've never had a spicy hot nasu no shigiyaki, so your description sounds spot on (and delicious).
It really was; this place was surprisingly great. Not that we thought it would be bad, just that it's definitely hipster-oriented, and we've had a pretty bad run of those lately.
If a touch of spiciness is added to a dish in Japan, it's often referred to as having a "grown-up taste" (otona no aji). I guess the image of sophistication would fit the hipster vibe?
staying within Japanese cuisine but playing at the edges
Studentem rebus novis, more like. Innovators beware!
189: This sounds great. Looking forward to the review so I can go to this place.
107: I'm curious as to what they're actually saying. Are they outright saying they're scared/worried about stuff? Or talking angrily and you're reading fear between the lines, or what? I'm interested because my own racists (though they have many fears and resentments, mostly against other whites) express the racism through contempt and revulsion.
Today in "For people who totally have a black friend Republicans really need to think about checking stuff with that black friend" we have this remarkable consequence of the decision to divide up the convention center into "Red", "White", and "Blue" sections.
201 They do talk about how frightening it is, especially my mother but you can hear the fear below the "we're at war, let's bomb the hell out of them" bluster from my father and brother too. It's all very upsetting.
great blog, congratulations, very nice