With all the stomach flu in the house this week, I think we definitely had the shittiest Christmas in family history. My children are about ready to riot. They’ve had one barely functioning parent (or the other) since Friday, and are really tired of being told we can’t go do ____ because their parents are sick and/or exhausted.
In other news, I have discovered that swapping out vodka for Basil Hayden’s dark rye in a white russian is fantastic. I learned that whiskey, coffee liquer, and cream is called a Sneaky Pete.
I hope unionization does for the SPLC what it has done for so many other institutions.
That’s not how I remember it at all.
China, Russia, and Iran to hold joint “naval” exercises (I’m not sure Russia and Iran qualify as having navies) in Gulf of Oman. Over/under on number of vessels inadvertently sunk?
What’s more problematic? That someone produced a play of “Mrs. Doubtfire” or that a play about a man “passing” as a woman would be problematic to transpersons?
How does Russia not have a navy?
Sean Connery defected with it.
How do you sink a norwegian submarine?
Give it a swedish crew!
It rusted away while they weren’t looking.
Since they discovered things like “maintenance” and “training” were not frills….
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/russias-only-carrier-damaged-in-shipyard-accident-now-on-fire/
Losing the use of that carrier actually makes their navy more powerful. Also, they’re ranked as #2 here by this random internet publication whose degree of credibility I have idea of.
#2:
http://www.military-today.com/navy/top_10_navies.htm
While their large surface combatants have been rusting away, they are continuing to crank out smaller “corvettes” – most with long range VLS cruise missile capability and decent SAMs- and they are still developing new subs.
Aside from the nuke capability though, I’d say China is more concerning even if they haven’t got nuke subs yet.
they are continuing to crank out smaller “corvettes” – most with long range VLS cruise missile capability and decent SAMs
Interesting. With the right doctrine, that could punch way above its weight.
While it survived.
At the risk of infuriating any swabbies here I have to say our doctrine of consolidating our force into $10 billion super carriers worries me. It is great to have the most potent weapon afloat, but it also makes for big targets. I’m not sure we aren’t making the same error the battleship Admirals made when carriers came on the scene.
Carriers excel at maximizing opportunities for congressional pork since they involve very large ships AND airplanes AND support ships.
I’ve had the same thought. That’s a lotta eggs in one basket, depending on unproven/questionable anti-missile technology for survival in a no-shit naval shooting war.
Carriers are excellent for projecting offensive military power against nations that can’t defend themselves very well. Whether they’d survive a swarm of cruise missiles on a modern battlefield against a well equipped and trained opponent, who the hell knows?
I’m in favor of building new battleships.
Not sailing them, just building them.
KanColle fan?
“Kuznetsov has had a long string of bad luck,”
Luck? Insert Heinlein quote.
Graft.
Corruption.
Incompetence.
I’m sure they have some vessels that are currently floating and not on fire, but a working navy is more than that.
They have one barely functioning carrier. That’s what counts.
“Though no Seattle Times writer is brave enough to put their name to the initial hot take, the piece declares the play is “problematic” in the headline. They take the position that “a man in a dress doesn’t cut it as a punch line in 2019 — not without serious and necessary conversations.” With that in mind, they connected with “five theater artists — some transgender, some queer” to get their takes before and after they saw the play.”
OFFS!
Monty Python is right out.
“At the same time, transgender activists with the fringe Gender Justice League is pressuring the Seattle Public Library to illegally cancel an event by a feminist group they disagree with (the group’s message is, essentially, “men are men and women are women”). And the library is actually consulting with the city’s legal department on steps they could take. Maybe next they’ll start banning books — or, heck, burn them if they promote messages or discussions that activists dislike.”
Gender Justice League?
If there were any justice, they would be told “As a government-funded organization, we cannot discriminate against a group based upon their political views, so no one will be cancelled.”
A little known DC Comic.
[nongendered golf clap]
*uptwinkles*
Shouldn’t that be AC/DC comic?
To not get sued and harassed.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE HALL OF LUSCIOUS
Gender Justice League
Their meetings are the best. The amount of sex swapping that goes on there is insane!
Seems appropriate here
https://www.metroweekly.com/2017/11/justice-league-gay-porn-parody-replaces-black-character-white-trump-voter/
I would say that is peak 2019 except it happened two years ago! How much longer are we going to have to put up with this crap?
You try writing scripts for gay pr0n if you think it is so easy. It isn’t. It is hard!
Possibly even difficult!
My favorite character is Wondering Woman.
My favorite neighbor is Wandering Woman, especially if I was 40 years younger
There was an even more ‘offensive’ joke in the movie, surely that can’t be in the play in current year.
Apparently some don’t like it hot.
That movie is great.
Nobody’s perfect.
I’m very offended by all of these offended people.
I tried to get into their headspace and get all offended at the entire string of comedies dedicated to the idea that fathers are inferior caretakers, but nope. I just couldn’t care. Speaking of that, I wonder how Mr. Mom holds up…
220, 221 whatever it takes….
You know who else dressed down a man during the holiday season?
Mrs. Claus?
Thicc?
Jamie Lee Curtis?
Yup. Complete mystery as why so many gay people no longer support/identify with the LGBT SJW’s.
What a bunch of jackasses! I mean the trans folks were helping to man the barricades when the gays were trying to repeal anti-gay laws and win the right to be legally married. Now that it is time to put people into camps for laughing at a man dressed up in drag and where are they? Nowhere!
It’s a story about a man dressing as a woman in order to see his kids. It is serious enough.
Mrs Doubtfire is my wife’s favorite movie. Here it is as it should have been.
https://youtu.be/1Ckv_Dz-Sio
LOL
LOL
Robin Williams was pretty creepy in One Hour Photo.
LOL dumbasses. I hope the ones that voted “yea” are the first ones to go when the cutbacks arrive.
Unions and extortion go hand in hand.
Can’t say I blame the employees for wanting a cut of the extortion money. Oh, you meant… nevermind.
Because of the implication
That is truly delicious.
The SPLC is a hate group.
Even better – the union members will be the last to go, because union.
The productive employees will be the first to go, because they will be the easiest to get rid of. Thus saddling SPLC with a workforce of virtually unfirable grievance-mongering parasites. What you might call, poetic justice.
How is that different from now?
SPLC as an organization is a grievance-mongering parasite.
The union will turn its workforce into grievance mongering parasites. Meta-parasites, if you will.
I’m assuming anyone who isn’t management will be in the union. But yes, I’m sure whatever rules they cook up will ensure that anyone who works hard will be the first to go.
Who will the SPLC employees turn to with their grievances? Will the NLB listen or direct them to the BBB with their complaint?
Fleet Farm VS Farm and Fleet was brought up in one of the threads earlier.
https://twitter.com/TeenVogue/status/1209975202613989376
Merry Christmas?
What you need to know. Poo is gross and stinky.
And afterwards, drugs fell out of her ass?
It’s that they re-tweeted it.
Which means it was ignored the first time. And that woman is not someone I would want to learn about anal sex from.
You’d be the catcher in that relationship.
I’m afeared.
The character who was so ashamed that they’d do anything to try to wash away their tawdry actions.
The Catcher in the Lye
All the antisemites in the replies make me want to stick it in the pooper.
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. They just want to prevent teen pregnancy.
Who cares? Teens will screw regardless and it is unlikely any of them are learning how reading teen vogue. They’ll learn the same way every generation does, from their friends.
“A day after releasing that super creepy “Kill them with kindness” Christmas video…another prominent Kevin Spacey accuser has been found dead. That brings the total number to 3 of Spacey’s accusers to have died this year alone.”
https://twitter.com/iheartmindy/status/1210251771068735489
Really?
Spacey vs Clintons Death-Off
Got to give the odds to the Clintons based on experience.
Taking method action to a whole new level.
They all had the dirt on Hillary, too.
Were any heads found in a box?
“‘I bet “two faced” Trudeau made the call’: Outrage as Canada’s national broadcaster CBC REMOVES Trump’s cameo from Home Alone 2″
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7828089/Outrage-Canadian-TV-network-REMOVES-Donald-Trumps-cameo-Home-2.html
WTF, Canada?
Did drugs fall out of Macaulay Culkin’s ass?
Yes
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320244/
It’s Canada. Does anyone really care?
Only the floppy-headed muppets, but they’re too busy working.
Well, somebody’s gotta do it to keep youse Glibs in cheese.
Our little muppet buddy…
Howdy everyone! Are we fat and happy from yesterday? Apologies to Brett and family…
My innards are a little disgruntled, but otherwise, things are dandy!
How about you? You doing okay? How’s Wendy?
Bummer,
yes I am,
Wendy’s doing better, but now they are worried about her heart, so it’s day to day
I would never have guessed it, but I might be getting bored with ham.
I call shenanigans.
My god.
Okay, we need to fix this. Two slices of buttered white bread, with a layer of fried ham. White trash food of the gods.
Hawaiian roll, Dean’s French Onion Dip, Swiss cheese, and ham.
Try my families version some time. I could eat three of those as a kid.
“I’m not sure Russia and Iran qualify as having navies”
Their naval exercises will involve a lot of gazing.
Russian naval exercises
I thought that was when you drank a shot from the belly button of a hot Russian model.
“After Chernobyl, my penis is falling off.”
“And ‘penis’ is Russian for what?…”
“Facts are misremembered to fit personal biases”
So there are fine people on both sides?
Moon boot wearing edit fairy hardest hit.
I got your male privilege right here.
Now, I’m sure there are good things where boys outnumber girls, and bad things where girls outnumber boys (the chicks probably have a lock on teen pregnancy), but that list pretty damning.
I’ve said it before: the marginalization of young men that is epidemic in our society is reaping the wind. There is no more destructive force on earth that a class of disenfranchised young men, so when it comes whirlwind time, its going to be a stone-cold bitch.
See: China and the Middle East
China is keeping the lid on, for now, but thanks to the One-Child Policy they also have tens of millions of young men who have zip, zero, nada chance of getting married or having a family. That’s a structural problem that they cannot solve.
The disadvantage of being the biggest country in the world in 2019 – the usual methods of disposing of an excess of young men (really big wars, colonisation) aren’t going to work.
Which doesn’t mean those evil fucks won’t try. China as aspiring hegemon is extremely concerning; China as failed-state-in-waiting is much worse.
There’s a huge human trafficking problem in S.E. Asia due to the fact that rural farmers in China are outright buying brides from Burma, Laos, etc.. These women are basically treated as domestic and sex slaves until the produce a male heir. Then many of them are sold off to the brothels. At that point.
Fuck, that’s depressing. Although not remotely surprising.
Ha! We win at dying on the job! *high five*
You can object to our methods, but dammit, we get results!
And nobody will give a shit because it’s considered “payback” or some such BS.
Point #4 needs to end with “both gender identities”, not “all”.
At least six of those programs have either been discontinued, supplemented with boy-only programs, or converted to co-ed programs open to students of all gender identities.
“Separate but equal”, eh?
Actually, I think there’s definitely a role for separating the sexes during education through high school, anyway.
On the last point, I would have gone with “open to all students who qualify academically”. Sad, how the wokester corruption of language and thought has reached even their skeptics and opponents.
The latest in Romancelandia drama. File under “I hate everybody involved.”
RWA for being so dreadfully moribund.
Courtney for being a drama queen and attention whore.
Publishing, for mistaking “what people buy” for “what people would rather buy.”
White women for latching onto and taking over PoCs’ causes and thinking they’re being an ally instead of attention whoring.
And everybody who demands publishing publish “diversity” whether anybody really wants what they’re calling diversity or not.
The indie market took care of providing diversity. If people just left the Cult of Traditional Publishing …
Care to elaborate?
What people buy is what they are actually offered.
What people would rather buy is stuff they aren’t actually offered, but what your marketing department should be identifying as unmet demand.
Example: a hospital doesn’t have a stand-alone same-day surgery operation. So, nobody’s buying same-day surgery. But, people generally prefer it whenever its available. the marketing department should know that, and should be pushing the hospital to open one.
Thank you.
I was also looking for examples from romancelandia. It’s fascinating to view such things from the outside when I have no emotional investment and can just see the information and patterns.
I would, too. I find Moje’s little glimpses into the fraught world of romance fiction to be fascinating.
Hell, I almost watched a Hallmark Christmas movie this year. Fortunately, they were showing John Wick on the Paramount Network.
John Wick is a romance movie about a man’s love for shooting other men in the head.
John Wick is a romance movie about a man’s
love hatred for his sense of hearing.There was, once upon a time, a very specific subgenre of romance set in Regency England (~1805 – 1820-ish). Back in the 90s, these were about as big as Harlequins and usually very “sweet,” aka very little sex, if any. Fade to black, sweet kisses, maybe a punishing kiss or two here and there.
The 90s was a time of great variety and diversity of plot, settings. time periods, races, para/normal, quirkiness, oddball plot twists, and other such delightful things. The Regency was moving up in the world from Harlequin size and sweet kisses to double the word count and sessytimes. And then … the aughts came.
Since then, it’s been Regencyville. There are more dukes per capita in London than there are pork pies. The plots and characters got worn and threadbare. Harlequin was the only one providing any diversity, and that was little enough to speak of.
Romance readers are an odd lot. They will take what they can get because they read SO MUCH. So as long as a genre is selling, the publisher thinks that’s what readers WANT and that nothing else will sell. No, it’s just what they can get. Nowhere else in genre-dom can they be guaranteed a love story with a happily ever after, no matter how chawed to death.
The indie revolution changed that, but it didn’t change the publishers’ view that Regency England is where it’s at. The problem with indie publishing is that the books are there, but readers don’t know where to find them.
You haven’t heard of the Ducal Plague of the Napoleonic War?
I think I could make that work.
Now, I will say this: There are time periods and locales that WILL NOT SELL in romance no matter what.
Nobody wants to read anything in the Civil War era, probably because it’s uncomfortable and there is no room for a sympathetic Confederate portrayal by a protagonist so the conflict is neutered.
Asia in any time period will not sell, but I think that’s because Americans and Europeans know absolutely nothing about the history of Asia and have zero connection to it. It feels like work.
Poor Margaret Mitchell.
lol, that was my immediate thought. Yeah, except for the single most successful and acclaimed Romance Novel of all time…
Ivanhoe?
It’s not a romance novel.
It’s a love story in various places, but it is not a romance novel.
I see the distinction you are drawing but I do not buy it. It is a novel centered around a romantic relationship. Gone With the Wind and Vanity Fair are either Romance novels or the genre has excluded its best works.
*I* am not drawing that distinction. The distinction has been drawn, although relatively recently.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel
Gone With the Wind had romance in it, but it was never marketed as a romance novel. It is historical fiction and, strictly speaking, a bildungsroman. She goes through 3 dudes and breaks every one of them and ends the book alone.
It is not a romance in either the classical sense (Ivanhoe, h/t The Hyperbole) or the genre fiction sense.
Still not buying it. Historical fiction is almost all romance novels IMHO. Drawing as fine a distinction as you say the genre has drawn is silliness and pretty much guarantees that every thing will be straight formulaic tripe.
O’Brian, Michener, Stephenson, Eco, Clavell (among others) might disagree.
O’Brian is the only one on that list I’d agree didn’t write romance novels, and even a couple of the Aubrey Maturin novel bump up against it. To my mind a novel is a Romance novel if it centers around a romantic relationship. I might be willing to agree that it has to have a female protagonist, but I am not sure about that. I’ll have to think about it. If so, then yes most of Michener, Eco and Clavell don’t count. Serious question, by the definition you proposed are there any romance novels that are literature other than Jane Austen?
“Literature” as in “books you are forced to read in school” or “books Jarflax doesn’t think are formulaic tripe”? ?
Literature by your definition. If you don’t have one let me propose this divide. Harlequin on one side, Austen on the other. If the book is on the Austen side of the line it is literature.
Then what is at issue here is what you think “centers around” actually means.
Scarlett’s story doesn’t center around a romantic relationship. She has three and they are a means to an end, which is her survival. Scarlett only EVER thinks about Scarlett and what is best for Scarlett, and she ends up alone.
I don’t know noting
about birthin’ no babbieswhat is or isn’t a romance novel and as the one true libertarian I dispise collectivism and pigeonholing but IF one is going to divide art (books/movies/music) into genres then one must has some criteria, when I see a list of “Noir” that includes “Gone Girl” or “Silence of the Lambs” or whatever this years big “Crime” story is a small part of me dies. So if Mojo and the RWA want to define their genre who are you to nay sayI’m sitting here typing and erasing response after response. In all good faith, I don’t think I’m capable of completing that task to give you titles you will accept.
For instance, Outlander is a romance novel taught as literature. It may be good. It may, in fact, be literature. But I haven’t been able to get past page 50, and I’m a patient reader (or I was, once upon a time).
Hell, one of my books is occasionally taught as literature.
There is a romance author who wrote stories in the 90s I love. They are certainly nowhere near Harlequin, but are they near Austen? They are certainly as well written, and the storytelling is more engaging, less distant and cold.
What is the criteria for literature? Good storytelling, technical proficiency, reader engagement … ?
I’m really not trying to prevaricate. Austen is a slog for me, as much a slog as Gabaldon. I do not ENJOY Austen and so …
I … don’t know how to answer the question.
Scarlet grows, but her growth comes from the relationships, and their failures and I think the relationship with Rhett is the central narrative of the novel. What genre would you put it in? Historical fiction? It has a backdrop, but it is entirely character driven not focused on the war. I divide fiction into:
1. Romantic fiction which is centered on a romance
2. Mysteries, which center around a mystery
3. Coming of age. self explanatory
4. Slice of life, which is just crap most of the time and has no real plot.
5. Epic Journey, full blown hero’s journey, from page to king, full lifespan coverage
6. non-epic journeys, development from page to knight.
7. Messianic, like unto 5 but more centered on moral development than practical
5 and 6 may actually all belong under 3.
Then there is a separate division as to setting with historical, science fiction, fantasy and contemporary as the divisions.
Her relationships fail.
That is not romance.
Look I am not trying to pick a fight here. I am just opposed to too much pigeon holing in literature and think it leads to:
1. Bad books as people torture their narrative to fit all the tropes required
2. Authors falling through the cracks because they don’t do 1 and therefore cannot be published.
I’m not trying to be the one true critic here. I just think the definition you say the genre has accepted excludes many of the best works I think of as being in the genre.
Although if you find Jane Austen cold and a slog I could be persuaded to fight that fight.
But … I’m not telling you what *I* think. That’s my point. You just described the marketing for every single genre book on the shelves. You are picking a fight with New York City and London publishing.
Books have to be put in a section of the bookstore on shelves that are clearly marked X, Y, or Z.
There are romance novels that are anointed to go on the “literature/fiction” shelves. They are given lovely covers with nary a human on them.
There is historical fiction given clinch covers and banished to the romance shelves just because it has “a romance” in it and the people happen to end up together.
This is solely a marketing thing, and I didn’t decide it. I WRITE in it and thus, I conform (mostly) to the expectation of a central romance and an HEA that I did not define.
Gone With the Wind is and always has been marketed as historical fiction. That is not something I just pulled out of my ass, and NYC and London do not give two shits what *I* think is or should be romance.
As for Austen, de gustibus. I don’t argue like/dislike.
Huh.
I’m trying to articulate why that seems surprising. I guess it’s because my mental categorization has works like “Gone with the wind” adjacent to the genre. Maybe it’s a recent hypersensitivity. Has this been a dead zone for a while or only recently?
Gone With the Wind was in no way a romance, as romance readers define it.
Now, *I* never liked the Civil War era anyway for reasons I don’t entirely understand except that some wars are more exciting than others.
But lemme think … Maybe 20 years? I looked on Goodreads. Out of a list of 102 most popular Civil War romances, 40 were published in the 2000s, but only half of those were actually romance novels, as the genre is defined. For instance, Cold Mountain (although pubbed in the 90s) is on the list and that is a love story, but not a romance novel. There are a few others pubbed in the 2000s that are “romance,” but sneakily sneak around the war and slavery in general. And that’s how that war rolls.
I willfully profess my ignorance of what does and does not count as being of the genre. These sorts of misconceptions are the result of not being a reader of the works and relying on distant impressions.
Right, I know. The definition is this:
The romance between the protagonists (straight, gay, even if it’s 3 or more people) is the central story AND the end must be a happily ever after (a happily for now will work).
If there is no happily ever after, it’s not a romance. It’s a love story.
Nicholas Sparks doesn’t like being considered a romance author any more than we like it.
Also. You got me started and now I can’t shut up.
Regarding other time periods: In Regency, it’s easy to slip in 21st century mores or at least minimize the backward and awful thinking of people in Regency England.
Other eras, not so much. To be true to a time period, one must occasionally have one’s protagonists thinking the way they would have (or think they would have) the, which is to say, much more calloused, racist, misogynistic, with slaves and suchlike, and other such BadThinks. You can’t give a protagonist a sympathetic hearing if they BadThink.
Me, I already had an unsympathetic heroine, so I didn’t have a problem with making her a ship’s master on a slave ship. BUT! What I DIDN’T do was have her continue to be a slaver once she took control of the ship. What I ALSO did was make that job the only one she could get (being a woman who refused to cross-dress). What I ALSO also did was put her on a racially indiscriminate slaver on the Barbary Coast, not carting Africans across the Atlantic Ocean. So, no, I wasn’t that brave, either.
The audiobook I’m listening to is doing that with a later time period, and I’m annoyed at how it rips me out of the story with the clash between what should be. It makes the story sound more like modern people cosplaying than a historical time period.
Yes.
I will admit that I like the mores of fresh breath, shaved legs, clean puzzle parts, and lack of body odor, ‘cuz ain’t nobody want that much realism.
I was more thinking in regards to all the main characters holding “correct” modern political views rather than period views, since the work I’m listening to does not include those details.
Rule 34 implies *someone* does.
And I do mean all. It gets jarring after a while when no one in a supposedly middle class victorian circle of people holds middle class victorian values.
Oh, I know, I’m sorry. I was speaking adjacently.
No need to appologise. After I wrote my response I actually started to laugh.
Did someone use the word “Bespoke” in the late 19 early 20th century meaning in an obviously 16 to 17th centuryish setting?
No.
Then I fail to see the problem.
Interesting stuff, Mo.
My Grandmother, after years of her Napoleonic era faction being rejected by publishers, dove into Regency novels. She must have had about thirty of those damn books published. Pity. Her Historical Fiction was, in my opinion, about as good as Michener.
Then again, she was the most severe woman I’ve ever met. Brilliant. Best poker player I ever went up against. Brilliant musician….but the least emotional human I ever met. Her books reflected that. The “romance” seemed mostly about people matching up with the right level of social status.
I’ll just stick with Penthouse Forum letters. More my speed. “I never thought it would happen to me, but I was reading Adam Smith in my hotel room when a maid walked in with a Hayek book”
So why was Courtney actually booted?
For trashing another author in public.
Who was your grandmother????
Her pen name was Lois……god damn it. I can’t recall the last name she went by. I know I have a box of them stored away somewhere. I’ll have to work. She was always saving her real name for a “serious” book. Her last book was back in ’96 or ’97. Sometime before the Red Sox won the world series. She was buried with a radio tuned to the radio station she listened to games on, as well as a book to keep box scores. My fear was that she would rise from her grave after they won.
Lois Stewart. Who has the rights to those books?
Damn! That’s one of them! Amazing! Yeah. “Marriage of Convenience” was one of the terrible books I forced my way through.
I think it’s my Aunt who has them. She also has the unpublished manuscripts, including her unpublished historical novels that I would love to do a pass on and submit. She had one book on Marshall Ney that was a real page turner. I would love it to see print some day.
Okay, well, whoever has the rights is probably sitting on a copper mine. Let me know if you/whoever has the rights ever want to see them on the market again. New typesetting, new covers, Kindle editions …
Huh. Living with an author who is happy when she sells twenty books in a week, it never occurred to me that there might be value. I’l ask my mom when she’s back in town next week. Do you know how it normally works with an estate of an author? I know my Aunt was the executor of the Grandfather’s estate when the old Marine kicked it…and he outlived his wife by about six years of drunken debauchery. Do publishing rights go with the estate in general?
Whoever is the executor of her estate will have to look at her publishing company’s contract, and it will be different for each title (looks like she had about 15 under that pen name). Copyright laws are wonky, so she could have assigned them to her publisher (but the lady you described should be too shrewd to do that).
Also, what author do you live with?
Literary rights are just a property interest. If they were not specifically willed to someone they go with the residual estate. Did she leave a will? If so either the will specified who owns the rights or whoever inherited the residual estate owns them. If not they would be divided among the inheritors by State law.
Please say Georgette Heyer. Please please please please!!!
Lather, rinse, and repeat in every industry for the next few decades. Yay.
Okay, in conjunction with expecting people from the distant past to be woke, we must also expect writers from the past to be woke.
The Milan versus RWA business is an example of retroactive judgment of BadThinkers. The inciting incident was that, on Twitter, Milan (romance’s woke darling and crusader) called out another author’s 1999 release as a “fucking racist mess.” Suzan Tisdale, the author, went to RWA and filed a complaint because you’re not supposed to trash other authors in public. That’s in the, you know, bylaws.
I don’t know how much of a racist mess the book is, but it was published in 1999. However, Tisdale probably should have just said, “And…?” (if anything at all) and gone about her merry business. Twenty years ago, people. Let it go. There is no allowance for “when you know better, do better” with these people.
“a man in a dress doesn’t cut it as a punch line in 2019 — not without serious and necessary conversations.”
“serious and necessary conversations.” = “shut your mouth and listen up while we tell what to do and how to think.”
“Fuck off. Is that serious enough for you? If not, there’s more where that came from.”
Time for some good news:
Puerto Rico adopts shall-issue carry law.
PR’s gun laws still suck, but this is progress.
I think this puts them ahead of HI, NJ, NY, MA, and CA. Which is a pretty big jump. And after 2020, add VA.
Interesting to see any of the US territories being allowed to let their people be properly armed. Even Hawaii isn’t treading that path.
Most Americans have no idea how many territories we still govern – PR, Guam, Saipan, and Samoa. Most of them have heavy restrictions on firearms ownership. It’s really difficult to see this in anything but a heavily racist light – amazing in this age of wokeness (if we were talking about any other human right)
Decades of propaganda have completely erased any racist intent in most people’s minds.
Gun control in the US (despite what Suthen and many other commentators yell about) has not been about disarming the white public. It, as well as the war on drugs, has mostly been about people who would never dream of using the words nigger or spic, being scared that nasty brown or black people will hurt them and wanting to make sure those people get arrested and imprisoned if the act up. Yes, once the laws are in place, they get enforced against white people as well sometimes, but the real drive since the beginning is the same as the rest of the Jim Crow crap. A belief that ‘those people’ are dangerous.
The racism I am referring to with respect to the above is specifically towards the Pacific island natives. There is a strong element of racist paternalism, both from the locals and the federal system, implying that these people are too irresponsible to be trusted with guns.
I spent 15 years in the US Army Reserves – all drills, exercises, training, and schools were at locations throughout the Pacific. Through that experience I’ve come to know dozens of people from all of these territories and it always struck me how different their America is more like Japan and other countries in Asia when it comes to firearms.
Just brought the dogs home from getting their teeth cleaned. That’s a pile of stoned pup. Adler just fell asleep standing up.
Bella is sulking in the bedroom, it’s not supposed to rain here, poor spoiled puppy…
I’m sure he’s missing momma too.
*she
He is, too.
On 12/26/06 at 6:36 pm, Mama Tres conked-out from pancreatic cancer
RIP Mom.
/chugs beer
Oh, Tres, I’m so sorry.
My deepest sympathies.
My belated sympathies, Tres.
Its been 13 years so Im nearly over it. It resonates more cause its the day after Christmas, and I only left Hospice on Christmas eve cause I had to do laundry. She’d been doing Cheyne-Stokes breathing for a week (I even told her comatose ass one night “would you hurry up and die? I cant sleep cause of the noise you’re making”). Id started to doze off in the chair next to her bed, and woke cause she finally stopped making that infernal racket.
I unplugged dad on July 7, 2004 at 6:22pm. I feel ya.
I was astounded that, even after respiratory failure, how long her heat continued to beat. It was the 1st death Id witnessed in that context, but I bet the heart kept trying for a solid 5 minutes after her last breath. The human body is something else.
My Gramps bought it on November 10, 1998. My mom called me and told me to haul ass to the hospice (30 minutes away). I was the last one there. They were telling him that I was on my way and the tough SOB held on until I got there (at least that’s what I choose to believe. It was less than 5 minutes after I got there that he died. Peaceful.
It was a long time ago, but I miss that dude nearly every day. Sorry for your loss, but I hope the memory of Mama Tres makes you smile.
Oh my god, that’s a coincidence. I did the same on the 30th of July, same year. He’d had some medical issues but had kept it from everyone, even to the point of bribing a cousin to drive him to the VA hospital in Baltimore and not tell anyone about it. One morning I got a call from my grandmother that he’d been admitted to the VA hospital and we raced up to meet him. We talked, he seemed weak but otherwise fine; in retrospect, he was saying some end-of-life type of stuff, apologizing for not being a better father, that sort of thing, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I went home. Later that morning I got a call that he’d gone into a coma and I’d better come up. That last time we talked was the last time he was awake, and I gave the sign-off to take him off life support that afternoon. He was 46 and I was 26.
Fucked me up but good. It was hard, and it never really got better so much as got familiar. The biggest thing that changed was that, in the immediate aftermath, I lost the ability to care about anything at all. Nothing really seemed to matter compared to losing my dad. It was a good ten years until I got back to something like normal, but if I’m being honest that stripped the last shreds of emotionalism or romanticism I’d had since I was a kid. I didn’t turn into a sociopath or anything, but after that I never really felt about people in the same way, and still don’t, other than my daughter.
I should probably see somebody, but that’s why God invented booze.
I’m so sorry.
Sorry Tres. It is tough even when expected.
Thanks to everyone. For a bunch of misanthropic “get off my lawn types” you a-holes are shockingly compassionate.
RIP Mama Tres.
*raises glass to Mama Tres*
Shit, man. Toasts to you. Stay strong.
Sorry 🙁
*tips one back for Mama Tres*
*raises glass of rye*
This Miami vs. LA Tech game is painful to watch. I don’t think either team wants to be there.
Welcome to Shreveport!
*snort*
Is this Walk Ons bar and grill anything special? Apparently co-owned by Drew Brees?
Think a few Glibs already reviewed it, but just another plug for “Richard Jewell” (watched it on Mon night). I mean…the dude was a fat, authoritah-loving loser but he did the right thing at the right time and the state tried to shaft him for it. (you see him at the end as a cop/deputy for another police force and you kinda wonder if he learned anything from the experience). But yeah, also goes to show that if the state will shaft him, there’s no way in hell it won’t shaft ordinary joe glib, etc. (and he does have a point when he tells the FBI that if he goes down for a bomb he reported (accurately) that the next time any security guard or joe sees a suspicious package – why bother reporting it at all – just turn and walk away.
And Sam Rockwell is awesome as his lawyer. A+ performance. Highly recommended.
I love Sam Rockwell in everything I’ve seen him in.
He always feels like somebody’s watching him.
*chortle*
Even his Zaphod Beeblebrox?
Anyone who tries that part is doomed to fail. I actually thought he was pretty good.
Rockwell was good, but you needed someone much bigger on the screen. Same for Ford. Jackie Gleason in his prime? Fuck. Impossible role to cast.
Huh. I did manage to power through that movie a couple years ago and I left without having any memory that he was in it.
To be fair, I never really “got” that thing in any of its forms.
Most underrated actor of our generation perhaps.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Mueller Report, it’s don’t talk to the FBI.
“Antifa grows out of a larger revolutionary politics that aspires toward creating a better world, but the primary motivation is to stop racists from organizing.”
https://twitter.com/TeenVogue/status/1209769646016122882
L
O
L
Saying Antifa is a scumbag organization only proves you’re scumbag you scumbag.
The existence of Teen Vogue is as compelling an argument against the value of literacy as I’ve ever encountered.
Also, is the portly young lady in the Champion hoodie that Lizzo person? Or just a body-positivity activist? Or an Old Navy ad dancer?
All of the above?
“Count Dankula – Comedy Unleashed Christmas Special 2019”
https://twitter.com/CountDankulaTV/status/1209182294654832642
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKsrYCCnELA
Ugh you people and your titles. SMDH
*sensible chuckle*
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1209232866313482240
Fuck Australia
“Satan’s pet land.”
Larf.
“Dis tew much”
heh
That should be an ad for a flamethrower.
Nope nope nope nope nope.
It’s like living in an Alien movie.
Opened a box of old keepsakes this evening while moving around some stuff.
Me in 1980 – https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/sXp0qeGvRXaYJWKGHox0GQ.ikoaOmxD6L33TwtJNXUeB4
Six years old – Easter day.
Hope that can of Sprite has a little holiday spice in it. Six is not to young to start the learning curve. Besides it’ll make you sleep better. You were a well dressed young man back it the day.
I do recall being allowed to sip some beers within a couple years of that photo.
I don’t have soda that often. I think I had two cokes and a Mountain Dew in all of ’19. Fact is, I doubt I finished any. So the woman buys a whole crap load of soda under the specious reasoning of “it was on sale” (I swear, women would buy AIDS infected needles if they were on sale). I have a 12 pack of Canada Dry Blackberry ginger ale in the house. You know what, add some bitters and some cheap gin and it’s an honestly great cocktail.
I refuse, however, to give her the satisfaction of telling her “good job” for bringing 4 12 packs of crap into the house.
“women would buy AIDS infected needles if they were on sale)”
If my wife gives me a shopping list I can shoot around the store in a third of the time that it takes her. She has to look at each head of lettuce, looking for the one that’s just right. If the list has 2 cans of corn on it I’ll buy 4, figure that if we need 2 today we’re gonna need more soon anyway.
Fortunately she doesn’t look for the sale items, unless its on the list and she stumbles on to it.
My gf is an organized shopper with a list. I’m a wanderer and explorer. Though I don’t do much of our shopping, so that may have some bearing on my less than efficient approach.
I have a list, but there will be things I *think* we need but hasn’t been put on the list. So I wander. Also, I wander more when I’m hungry. I do not buy stuff just because it’s on sale.
Have you looked at the heads of lettuce? At least around here 2/3 of them are wilted and nasty before you buy them and 2/3 of the remainder are within a day or two of being trash.
You gotta go with the living lettuce, still has a bit of the roots on and somehow must adsorb enough water from the other shit in the fridge to not go bad fro weeks.
A woman will spend $1 on a $2 item that she doesn’t need because it is on sale.
A man will spend $2 for a $1 item because he needs it right now.