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Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: Won't Get Fooled Again

By Jeralyn, Section Blog Related
Posted on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 01:53:29 PM EST
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I don't plan to write about the 9/11 anniversary. It's totally over-hyped, just like the anniversaries of the OKC bombing and every other disaster. Enough already. The media can milk the public without help from me. While I could counter the media coverage with posts about the many injustices in the last decade resulting from our war on terror, which has not made us safer, only less free, instead I'll just post great performances from the concerts relating to 9/11 -- especially those with a current relevant message.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

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    Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: Won't Get Fooled Again | 59 comments (59 topical)

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    911 Anniversary shows (5.00 / 1) (#8)
    by DFLer on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 03:30:09 PM EST
    I can't watch the shows repeating the horrors of the event.

    One show worth watching is the Frontline Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero - profound, provocative and moving.

    But (5.00 / 1) (#24)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:07:53 PM EST
    I do still to this day find myself riveted to the footage from that day, especially of the two plans smashing into the buildings, because I'm still unable to really get a handle on it.  I think my mind thinks if I just see it one more time, I'll be able to figure it out, or just fully grasp it-- or something.

    Part of my problem I think is that I didn't hear about it until it was all over, and I'm still haunted by the fact that all that going on while I was happily and obliviously doing something else.  I think, but I don't know, that I could have coped with it better if I'd experienced it one bit at a time as it unfolded.  But maybe not.  It really is unencompassable.


    Parent

    I don't know that seeing it happen in real (5.00 / 2) (#36)
    by Anne on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 10:11:39 PM EST
    time would have made it easier to grasp.

    I was at work.  I typically arrived in the office around 7:30 - I avoided a lot of the traffic that way, could sit in my office, eat breakfast and read the paper in relative calm.

    I had the radio on.  I heard about it, then went down the hall to my deparment head's office - he had a small TV, which he was just turning on.  We watched, open-mouthed and unbelieving.  We saw the second plane hit the other tower.  If we were having trouble believing what had already happened, what we were seeing made even less sense.

    We were in a corner office on the 15th floor of a building directly across the street from from the federal courthouse.  To the north side - the IRS.  In my own building - an immigration office.  We were 50 miles north of the Pentagon.  I felt like we were sitting ducks.

    My kids were at school, 35 miles away.  My husband was at a conference in Philadelphia.  

    Nothing made sense, and all I wanted was to be with my family.  If the world was ending, I wanted to be with the people I loved.

    It took me hours to get home.  The most direct route out of Baltimore didn't work, because they had closed off the block that housed police HQ and City Hall.  I kept calling the house, leaving messages on the machine - I had no idea whether my kids were on their way home.  The cell circuits were jammed and I couldn't reach my husband.  I was less than a mile from the highway, but it took almost three hours to finally get to it.  The people in the cars around me all looked like I must have: shocked, worried, anxious.  We were all trying to be patient, but it took everything we had not to just start screaming.

    Experiencing it all in real time was awful; typing these words puts a knot in my stomach.  It should have been happening with dark skies, thunder and lightning - but, as you know, it was an achingly beautiful day, which somehow made it all that much harder to understand.

    It will never make sense - whether you experienced it in real time, or were blissfully engaged in something else.  And you don't realize how it stays with you; the week before last, the earthquake brought it all back.  Something about feeling the building rock instantly put me in mind of that awful day - made me think of all those people in the WTC who never made it out.

    I suppose this is why it just infuriates me how easily our emotions are toyed with, in service of an agenda that I just don't believe is making us safer.

    Parent

    I heard it first (none / 0) (#50)
    by the capstan on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 12:41:04 PM EST
    on the car radio--the same way I learned of the JFK killing.  (I never turn on the radio at home, and rarely turn on TV.  But since that day in November, I always have my car radio on.)

    I was nearly at my destination, a kennel where I was going to leave my GSD for a week because my little grand-daughter, soon to visit,  was dog-fearful.  The announcer broke into with the news about the first plane.  I reached the kennel, grabbed the dog's leash, and ran inside.  There was a big TV attached to the ceiling, and as I looked up, I saw the second plane fly into the other building.

    When I reached home, I found out that my kids were immediately driving here from a large city one state over--prefering a rental car to a plane on such a fearful day.

    Parent

    Me too, car radio (5.00 / 1) (#55)
    by ruffian on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 06:36:52 PM EST
    and I think I could find the exact spot in the road to my old office in the southeast Denver if I tried. By the time I got to work, the 2nd tower had been hit and someone had the TV on. We had a big design review scheduled with many members of the Marine Corps and DoD workers who had come out from DC. And of course they were not only worried about their friends and families in DC, but stuck in Denver with no air travel. Many of them car-pooled and left later that day driving their rental cars to DC.

    My brother had been at the WTC the week before. The thought of that tied me into the emotion of the day so powerfully on my way home from work that night, imagining the pain of those families. Another brother had died in a car accident many years earlier, and I think I was reliving that in my emotions.

    I hope a lot of what happens in these national grief events is people remembering their own other griefs. It makes more sense to me that way.

    After that the main thing I remember was the absence of planes in the sky. I used to count them sometimes when I walked my dog in the evening. I lived in Castle Rock, between Co Springs and Denver, and I would count sometimes 20 planes at once in the sky. Then, nothing for a week. That was at once kind of beautiful, but sad.

    Parent

    Just fabulous program (none / 0) (#23)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:02:56 PM EST
    Originally aired on the 1st anniversary.  A lot of the 9/11 angst has to do with spirituality, metaphysics, the meaning of life, good and evil, etc., and this is the only treatment I've seen that addresses those issues in a thoughtful way.

    As a wonderful rabbi said in the program, there are no answers here, but just getting a little clearer on what those unanswerable questions are somehow helps.  At least I found it to be so.

    I wept through much of the program back in 2002, but not in fear and horror and anguish, just terrible sadness, which was a big improvement for me.

    Parent

    Charles M. Blow, visual Op Ed Columnist (5.00 / 1) (#9)
    by KeysDan on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 03:44:41 PM EST
    offers withering questions in today's NYT.  As a staunch supporter of President Obama, his column was stunningly edgy. Blow found that at the Joint Session of Congress, "The man was on fire!"  The speech, he continues, was an encouraging shift in tone with a meaty jobs plan but feels, in the end, it was just another speech.

    It did not answer definitively the large questions that remain and he asks:  "Has he truly shifted strategy or is his tonal shift merely temporal? Has he finally realized that you can't rub the belly of the beast that wants to eat you..  Has he finally realized that Americans value valiant struggle over bloodless surrender?   Does he have any interest in becoming the Obama of people's imaginations, the one they thought they saw through the showers of streamers and explosions of confetti in 2008?   Is the transformative president more than an opportunistic transformer, shifting shape to suit the moment, but truly settling on none? "  Obama, he warns," must answer these questions and quickly.  He isn't only battling a calcifying cynicism of government in general, he's battling the rapidly hardening public perception that he himself is a product of what I (Blow) call the doughnut doctrine of leadership--soft, glazy, hollow in the middle and ideally suited for getting dunked."     Blow concludes with the opinion that the jobs speech was "a good start toward a positive change if, indeed, it was genuine start and not part of a pattern of fits and starts.  The president was on fire, but the jury is still out on whether that fire was just another flash of light or a source of sustainable heat and whether some people would rather freeze than warm to him."    Ouch.  

    It may have been a start........ (none / 0) (#17)
    by NYShooter on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 06:57:43 PM EST
    Unfortunately, in the wrong direction.

    Let me, if I may, ask the right questions:

    "Who caused this worldwide calamity?"
    "Who was immediately indemnified from blame?"
    "Who benefited with riches beyond description?"
    "Finally, who emerged richer, more powerful, and prepared to do it again?"

    Anything else is treating cancer with aspirins.

    Parent

    Some thoughts on 9/11 and art (5.00 / 2) (#13)
    by ruffian on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 04:59:56 PM EST
    In Laura Miller's Salon article about 911 and the novel, she makes several great points. I've wondered as I have read books written in the last ten years whether there will ever be one that does not feel the need to at least mention 9/11.  On some level I feel like the terrorists are smiling whenever we let it seep deeper into our psyche and culture.  

    One of her thoughts especially articulated something I have not been able to put into the right words...

    Yet it's not possible to disentangle the suffering of 9/11 from the media surrounding it because the media is why the atrocity was perpetrated. These killings were designed and styled for the camera, catering to it in every way.

    For this reason, image culture has a different relationship to the attacks, which served as a nightmare confirmation of its bad conscience. There was a queasy symmetry in the jihadis' serving up the destruction of the towers to a society whose favorite entertainment consists of watching so many gigantic explosions. The spectacle was at once the worst sight in the world and exactly the kind of footage every news organization covets and every viewer tunes in to see.

    I think the media attention now is just milking it for all the drama and ratings they can. I think commemorations should be left to the families, much as we all observe the anniversaries of the deaths of our loved ones in our own ways.  Praise and appreciation of the true heroes that died saving lives can best be shown by treating the needs of their brethren that served and are now ill.

    Maybe I am just to crusty to emote when the media tells me I should.

    I understand, but (none / 0) (#26)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:14:17 PM EST
    it's that TV and media culture that made 9/11 something that deeply affected every single American.  Maybe that's not, in the end, a good thing.  I don't know.  But 9/11 happened not just to NY, but to every one of us because of the coverage.

    Sure, the media is milking it for ratings (though not for advertising.  If you haven't noticed, most of these programs are running without ads because advertisers don't want to be associated with something that's such a terrible downer), but please remember that "ratings" means it's something a lot of people want to see.

    Parent

    If it bleeds it leads... (1.00 / 1) (#29)
    by Mr Natural on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:15:33 PM EST


    Parent
    All I can say to people who are thrilled at (5.00 / 3) (#18)
    by Anne on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 07:11:16 PM EST
    the shift in Obama's tone, in one speech, is, have you forgotten the innumerable sternly-worded letters from Democrats in Congress?  Do you remember what happened next?  As in...nothing?

    I suppose it speaks to how desperately people want someone to stand up for them that they can be swayed by the rhetoric of one measly speech, but, sheesh, don't be such a cheap date, for crying out loud.

    And reserve judgment until the action matches the words; I would politely suggest that people might not want to hold their breath...

    Not to worry we are about to pivot (5.00 / 2) (#31)
    by MO Blue on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:27:46 PM EST
    away from jobs and back to fleecing the American public - I mean back to deficit reduction. Our bipartisan Senators are in secret meetings  shooting for $3 Trillion in cuts, lower marginal tax rates and cuts to the safety net programs.

    More than two dozen senators from both parties met privately this week to revive hopes of a grand debt-cutting bargain -- exploring how to push the newly formed debt "supercommittee" to find far more than its assigned goal of $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions.

    The senators want at least $3 trillion slashed from the deficit over the next decade. In addition, they plan to press the committee to pass a major tax overhaul to lower rates and close special-interest loopholes, as well as changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare, according to several participants [...]

    "I don't think I'm speaking out of school that it was a unanimous feeling among a large group of senators from both sides of the aisle," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), one of the meeting participants. "Most people are far more focused on this supercommittee than any speech the president's going to give." link

    BTW everyone will be happy to hear that Pete Peterson approves. FDL

    Parent

    I'm ignoring all the hype (5.00 / 1) (#30)
    by dutchfox on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:22:08 PM EST
    ... (after the initial retching over the the grotesque public display, the public exploitation of the deaths). I'll say a silent prayer for those that died on 9/11/01 and since then in the Bush/Obama wars. Monday will be a new "news cycle".

    Thank you, Jeralyn, for some sanity in all the hoopla.

    Appletini taste off results are in (5.00 / 2) (#40)
    by Militarytracy on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 08:01:57 AM EST
    The first I made was 1:1 Vodka and Appletini Finest Call mix.  Very refreshing and light...a splash of Apple Asti Spumante enhanced that too.

    The second Appletini I made was 1:1 Vodka and Apple Pucker Schnapps.  It had a great smell, was a little syrupy though and had a slightly unappealing schnapps after taste.  A splash of the Asti helped but did not heal.  Everyone loved the smell though, and smell is a part of tasting.

    The third Appletini I made was the Big Red Kitchen Appletini with the Vodka that had been soaking in cut apples.  I used Granny Smiths and threw in two Fujis too, very small cut up pieces.  I strained it with a regular strainer, did not worry about tiny apple parts in the vodka.  It was a pretty amber apple color.  In the shaker was 3:1 infused Vodka and simple syrup with a big fresh squeeze of lemon.  It was surprisingly apple even before we added a splash of apple juice and the younger crowd that thought they would hate a more traditional martinilike drink liked it.  I think you could do even more with this recipe, like add muddled Stevia in place of the simple syrup and/or add apple cinnamon tea bag for slight sweetness and make a really good skinny Appletini.

    In the end, the bride and groom and one of the bridesmaids all agreed on an Appletini we nicknamed the Third since it is 1/3 Vodka, 1/3 Apple Pucker Schnapps, and 1/3 Finest Call Appletini mix.  Out of the shaker we added a splash of Apple Spumante but I think at the wedding we will go with champagne since the drink is so sweet....which the younger crowd loves.  And it does smell like an Apple Jolly Rancher :)  The bride also wants to have the option of a caramel swirled on the bottom glass.

    9/11 - con job of the century (1.00 / 1) (#3)
    by Edger on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 02:11:43 PM EST
    Memories...

              The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.

          I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

              The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.

              In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

              And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

       -- Osama bin Ladin, 01 November 2004

    "Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn"

    "3000 major operations, and 10,000 minor operations... bloody and gory beyond comprehension... we have organized death squads in countries around the world... operation in Afghanistan - biggest single operation in the history of the CIA secret wars... we produced the golden crescent - the largest source of heroin in the world... we count at least - minimum figure - six million people who've been killed [by CIA ops] in this long 40 year war that we've waged against the people of the third world"

    -- Former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell ( video)
    Every day 6000-7000 Americans die. (5.00 / 1) (#27)
    by Mr Natural on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:14:17 PM EST
    The WTC attack was horrifying by any measure but from a statistical perspective, September 11's 3000 additional deaths was simply an outlier.

    Parent
    But the facts are: (none / 0) (#21)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 08:57:32 PM EST
    By 1997, despite the help that the US had given the Taliban in its fight with the Soviets, Osama said this to Peter Arnett of CNN in 3/97.

    REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, will the end of the United States' presence in Saudi Arabia, their withdrawal, will that end your call for jihad against the United States and against the US ?

    BIN LADIN: The cause of the reaction must be sought and the act that has triggered this reaction must be eliminated. The reaction came as a result of the US aggressive policy towards the entire Muslim world and not just towards the Arabian peninsula. So if the cause that has called for this act comes to an end, this act, in turn, will come to an end. So, the driving-away jihad against the US does not stop with its withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula, but rather it must desist from aggressive intervention against Muslims in the whole world.

    Link

    Pretty plain. Let us do what we want to do throughout the WHOLE world or we will attack you.

    What he offers is a world wide caliphate in which non-Muslims can exist in dhimmitude.

    We can argue about the strategy we should take to resist, but our only choice is to resist the radical Muslims or surrender.

    There is no middle ground.


    Parent

    Yes (5.00 / 1) (#52)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 02:01:10 PM EST
    and the fundamentalists here in the US want the same thing only it to be based on the bible yet, you see nothing wrong with that. If you replaced the rhetoric in this country from fundamentalists and replaced bible with koran, Christianity with Islam, Christian with Muslim and God with Allah the rhetoric would be indistinguishable. Neither of these groups believe in the separation of church and state. You are never going to have a Caliphate or "muslim rule" as long as you have a strict church and state separation.

    Parent
    Spare me the excuse making (none / 0) (#41)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 08:44:14 AM EST
    for the lack of gratitude. Two wrongs do not make a right, or were you not taught that along with the history you reference?

    And it makes no difference if fundamentalism is the same.

    The question is, what does the people practicing fundamentalism stand for and what do they want?

    So while I agree that fundamentalism is bad, I have a reality filter that says:

    People who want to rule the world and kill those who oppose them are evil and must be opposed.

    And yes, it really is that simple.

    Parent

    Will be at Getty Villa to see Euripides (none / 0) (#1)
    by oculus on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 01:57:19 PM EST
    "The Trojan Women," directed by Anne Bogart.  Apropos.  

    Best museum experience around (none / 0) (#67)
    by MKS on Mon Sep 12, 2011 at 11:53:06 PM EST
    In one of the main rooms on the ground floor, they have a coffin from Roman 1st Century Egypt.  The lid has a colorful portrait of the deceased, a teenage boy.

    It was so vivid, the centuries of distance seemed to melt away.....That boy and his family seemed so much like us; we are not so much different now......or so it seemed.  

    Parent

    Will any of you expend an NYT "click" (none / 0) (#2)
    by oculus on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 01:58:33 PM EST
    to post its editorial on how it has dealt with post Sept. 11?  If so, thanks.  

    i will if Jeralyn says it's OK (none / 0) (#6)
    by The Addams Family on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 02:35:09 PM EST
    Jeralyn?

    Parent
    Sure, it's here (none / 0) (#11)
    by Jeralyn on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 04:38:54 PM EST
    NYTimes Editorial on 9/11: Loss and Hope

    Parent
    if you meant copy it and print it here (none / 0) (#12)
    by Jeralyn on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 04:40:03 PM EST
    we can't do that for copyright reasons.

    Parent
    what i meant & what i thought n/t (none / 0) (#16)
    by The Addams Family on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 05:46:31 PM EST


    Parent
    Also not necessary (none / 0) (#20)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 08:57:07 PM EST
    NYT doesn't count links from blogs as a "click."

    The whole set up is designed to be very, very porous.  They want to get $$ out of the people they can, but not block their stuff from those of us who don't want to pay for it.

    Seems odd, but it also seems to be working well for them.

    Parent

    I was requesting a link. (none / 0) (#61)
    by oculus on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 10:56:26 PM EST


    Parent
    IMO, Speaker Boehner's letter to (none / 0) (#4)
    by oculus on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 02:19:24 PM EST
    Pres. Obama is a tad condescending: letter

    As we are certain your advisors have told you, not all your ideas should be packaged in a single legislative vehicle.
    Why wouldn't Boehner condescend? (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by caseyOR on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 02:23:10 PM EST
    I just hope, silly I know, that Obama does not send the different parts of his jobs plan up separately. That's a surefire way to get the tax cuts and tax credits passed, maybe,  while leaving the meagre actual jobs creating part turning to dust on the floor of the House.

    Parent
    Oh no, you suckered me into (none / 0) (#14)
    by ruffian on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 05:05:43 PM EST
    cocking to Boehner's web page!

    I especially love this part:

    We share your desire for bipartisan cooperation, and assume that your ideas were not presented as an all-or-nothing proposition, but rather in anticipation that the Congress may also have equally as effective proposals to offer for consideration.

     Yes, I can feel the anticipation from here!

    Parent

    Oops, huh, CLICKING (5.00 / 3) (#15)
    by ruffian on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 05:06:33 PM EST
    I'm typing with a band-aid on after an accident with a fondue fork. Don't ask.

    Parent
    Y'know (5.00 / 1) (#22)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 08:58:28 PM EST
    it takes a certain amount of skill, of some kind, to stab yourself with a fondue fork.

    Just one question: Cheese or chocolate?

    Parent

    Ha, a housecleaning incident! (5.00 / 2) (#25)
    by ruffian on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:08:28 PM EST
    A cotton pad at the end of a fondue fork makes an excellent cleaning implement for disgustingly dirty screen room window tracks. Until your wet hand slips!

    Parent
    Oh, dear (none / 0) (#33)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 09:38:57 PM EST
    That's no fun at all.

    If it makes you feel any better, I once stabbed myself right in the artery on the inside of my wrist with a sharp knife when I lost control of the dishwasher silverware basket I was lifting out of the dishwasher. Blood shot straight up almost to the ceiling out of the little cut on my wrist and it scared the bejeebus out of me.  I kept imagining how ridiculous the obituary headline would look....

    Parent

    I often imagine the puzzlement of the (5.00 / 2) (#42)
    by ruffian on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 09:20:45 AM EST
    forensic team at the eventual site of my death. I have already warned my family it is going to be some incredible freak accident that will take the best experts in the country to unravel.

    I once almost knocked myself out opening the linen closet door!

    Parent

    I gave myself a black eye (5.00 / 1) (#49)
    by nycstray on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:37:50 AM EST
    with the freezer door . . . .

    Parent
    Oh boy, I'm beginning to think (5.00 / 1) (#56)
    by ruffian on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 06:39:37 PM EST
    we are not fit members of kdog's pirate crew!

    Parent
    We will simply ban fondue forks (5.00 / 3) (#59)
    by caseyOR on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 08:11:02 PM EST
    from the pirate ship. And bags of compost, too. And freezer doors.

    Parent
    Did you have to convince the doc (5.00 / 2) (#57)
    by ruffian on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 06:55:56 PM EST
    that you were not a victim of domestic violence? I had to when I punched myself in the nose shaking out a bag of garden mulch!

    Unless they count self inflicted domestic violence.

    Parent

    And I thought I was a klutz.... (5.00 / 1) (#60)
    by vml68 on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 10:18:30 PM EST
    You are making me look good... :-)

    Parent
    ha! (5.00 / 1) (#62)
    by CST on Mon Sep 12, 2011 at 10:37:08 AM EST
    that happened to me before.  I was helping out at a friend's construction site one summer.  Also I was completely broke, so I was anemic.

    I had a very long conversation with my doctor at my next physical explaining that yes, you really could get that many bruises just by being a clutz and not getting enough iron.

    Then there was the time I got the back end of a staple stuck in my forhead when I walked into a telephone pole.  And the time I sprained my ankle doing my spanish homework on the computer.  And I got my foot stuck in a train door.  Or the time I closelined myself, with a closeline.  Good times...

    Parent

    I have to stop and get back to work (none / 0) (#63)
    by sj on Mon Sep 12, 2011 at 11:57:30 AM EST
    I'm finding it hard to laugh silently right now.

    Parent
    I think (none / 0) (#64)
    by CoralGables on Mon Sep 12, 2011 at 12:07:47 PM EST
    there is a 15 yard penalty for that

    "Or the time I closelined myself, with a closeline."

    Parent

    My cousin and I used to have arguments (none / 0) (#65)
    by MO Blue on Mon Sep 12, 2011 at 12:17:15 PM EST
    on which one of us should have been named "Grace" since we both could trip on a piece of lint on the rug. We can now end that argument. You definitely have earned that distinction more than either one of us. ;o) (multiple smiley faces from one klutz to another)

    Parent
    I bet (none / 0) (#44)
    by jbindc on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:19:23 AM EST
    It will be one that is put on a CSI / Law & Order type show - aka "ripped from the headlines".

    "Ruffian dies in freak accident that involves duct tape, horseshoes, pipe cleaners, and a bread twist tie.  MacGyver is prime suspect."

    Parent

    Will Trevor Hoffman make it to (none / 0) (#7)
    by oculus on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 02:49:05 PM EST
    HOF?  Not even a quote from him in this NYT article re Rivera.  Sad. link

    What are Florida Seniors discussing? (none / 0) (#37)
    by Politalkix on Sat Sep 10, 2011 at 10:48:38 PM EST
    Hey, check this out

    From the article
    "That was the view among a quartet of Social Security recipients who meet daily for lunch at the West Tampa Sandwich Shop. None quibbled with Perry's description of Social Security, in last week's presidential debate, as "a Ponzi scheme."

    "It was a Ponzi scheme from day one," said retired firefighter and registered Democrat Ernie Carrera, 81, sipping a tropical fruit milkshake. "People can see that the money's not coming in compared to what is going out."

    Mario Castillo, 68, a semiretired auto paint distributor who is also a Democrat, leaned over from an adjoining table to say that Perry used the wrong language, but he added that Social Security "needs to be fixed.""

    With Democrats like these, who needs GOPers! It is quite possible that they may show up at a Perry event. Head meets desk.

    Maybe if the Democratic Party had (5.00 / 3) (#39)
    by caseyOR on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 12:38:50 AM EST
    a leader, like say, the president, who who consistently debunked the rumor that SS is insolvent fewer people would believe what Perry said.

    Where are the clear, unambiguous public statements from the Dems and the WH about the solvency of SS? About just what the SS Trust Fund is? How that Trust Fund works?

    Instead of yapping about the need to right this very minute reform SS and Medicare, Obama could tell people the truth.

    When the public only gets one side of the story, when they hear no one telling the truth about this, what do you expect them to believe?

    Parent

    The suspicion is not fixable (none / 0) (#45)
    by Politalkix on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:21:10 AM EST
    I know some registered Democrats who have been calling SS a Ponzi scheme since long before anyone heard about BHO. Actually, this kind of suspicion has been an undercurrent in our national discourse ever since the inception of SS.
    I tried to argue with one of these people a few weeks ago and asked him to prove that SS was insolvent. I told him that the only people who are saying SS is insolvent are the ones who want to privatise it. His paraphrased answer was "Ofcourse, the govt won't say SS is insolvent-that is the nature of Ponzi schemes-did Bernie Madoff tell people that he was running a Ponzi scheme? He worked hard to not let the "truth" come out". This is not an issue of BHO or some other Democrat, these people did not even believe that SS would remain available for even 15 more years when Gore talked about protecting it.
     

    Parent
    Who is going to tell them about their (5.00 / 1) (#43)
    by ruffian on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 09:22:26 AM EST
    other insurance policies? Ponzi schemes all!!

    Parent
    This is the problem (none / 0) (#46)
    by Politalkix on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:26:18 AM EST
    Every time any one of these people get scammed about any of their other policies (say insurance)or investments, the more convinced they get that everything is a Ponzi scheme.

    Parent
    Meh ... (none / 0) (#47)
    by Yman on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:27:13 AM EST
    I don't know that one FL Dem (agreeing with Perry's "Ponzi" characterization) and one disagreeing with Perry but agreeing with Obama ("It needs to be "fixed") is representative of FL seniors.

    Pretty funny, though, that your head is hitting the desk.  Yesterday, you were praising Obama for making the argument that "everything should be on the table" re: SS.

    Parent

    Yman (none / 0) (#48)
    by Politalkix on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:36:27 AM EST
    Please stop this misrepresentation. I have told you many months ago that I do not want to engage with you at all and asked you to stop. I never reply to your posts. However, you continuously keep posting replies to my comments knowing well that you will not get a reply. Please stop this stalking. This is my last warning. Next time, I will have to request Jeralyn to put a restraining order on you w.r.t my posts. Please do the decent thing and stop.

    Parent
    What "misrepresentation"? (5.00 / 2) (#51)
    by Yman on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 12:44:30 PM EST
    Just yesterday you posted a clip of Obama and stated you admired how "upfront" he was about his desire to reform Medicare and SS when compared to "other politicians".  I'm not "stalking" you at all - I'm responding to some posts you make on a comment board.  Unless you suddenly became a mod or started running this blog, you don't get to give "warnings".  If Jeralyn decides that somehow my responses are violating TL's comment policy, that would be her call, not yours.  Please "do the decent thing" and ignore my posts if you don't like them.

    Parent
    Note to Jeralyn (none / 0) (#53)
    by Politalkix on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 02:27:35 PM EST
    Jeralyn, Please check post # 48 and Post # 51 in this thread and let us know your opinion. Will it be possible for me to get a stalking free environment in TL from this particular commenter? If you feel what I am asking is unreasonable, please let me know. I will leave TL in that case.

    Parent
    (not Jeralyn) (5.00 / 3) (#58)
    by NYShooter on Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 07:14:08 PM EST
    Oh, please....

    What a childish response. The solution was handed to you, gift wrapped, by the "stalker himself; " just scroll on by.

    I consider most of your posts "stalking," or" trolling," but I wouldn't dream of running to mommy for relief. Cause, even you, by accident or by a coincidence  of sanity make a somewhat cognitive comment once in a great while.

    In other words....grow up.


    Parent

    PT -109 was on t.v. this weekend (none / 0) (#66)
    by MKS on Mon Sep 12, 2011 at 11:47:51 PM EST
    I kept thinking how JFK privately admitted that it was amusing how much praise he got for messing up and getting his boat runned over and cut in two by a destroyer.....

    Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: Won't Get Fooled Again | 59 comments (59 topical)

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