How fortumate that the secessionist MAGA southern Illinois counties have the "red" adjacent states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee who will welcome with open arms them and their net state income as like-minded brothers and sisters..
There's a group of loons in Eastern Oregon & Eastern Washington state that want to become part of Greater Idaho. Almost all are violent anti-government types!
As a former resident of eastern Washington, I must disagree with your characterization of its citizens as loons. As far as I can ascertain, no counties in eastern Washington have joined the Greater Idaho movement. While not exactly dazzling urbanites, it is a more populous, and dare I say, sophisticated region than eastern Oregon. Certainly, it has its share of MAGA folks, but I have many progressive friends there as well. Dan Newhouse is not a liberal by any means, but he was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over Jan.6.
Re: alternate brand foods. While in grad school my group of friends did a blind taste test with beer. They were all mass-market pilsner style beers. I can attest that when the taste test is blind, the big differences I perceived when I knew the brand disappeared almost completely. My family did the same thing a few years ago when someone resurrected Hydrox cookies. They are the same as Oreos, but don't say that to fans of Hydrox.
The UP of Michigan also similarly makes noises about seceding from Michigan. My same philosophy applies to the red counties of IL that want to leave: let 'em. Let's see how well they do on their own.
Assuming they create their own state. If they just join an already red state, no harm, no foul. Their population numbers are unlikely to lead to a change in house reps or electoral college votes.
Agree, all these folks are represented in Congress. How about getting Washington DC recognized with two senators and some members of the house. They have a population greater than a number of states. I am looking at you Wyoming.
If DC was MAGA, these wackos would be screaming no taxation without representation!
Let’s start pushing for representation and smoke out the vast swarth of Republican hypocrites.
In regards to "Higher Education", usually the experts in their fields are working for a living in their chosen field, not teaching at some university. So that student is paying a lot of money to some so called expert to tell him that he needs to read more. Love to get the students take on that after working in his field of expertise for 40 years. I would find that more interesting and how much of an expert he thinks his professor is now. I've worked over 40 years in my field and when I think back at Junior College the teachers there did work in their field at one point, but not everyday like I did for 40 years. They know some things, but not even close to everything.
Teaching is more than telling someone to read more. There is a talent and skill in the profession of explaining concepts in an understandable way and motivating and fomenting a passion. Sure some people can teach themselves, especially these days with the internet, but those are few. By the same token, being an expert in a field rarely corresponds to having a gift for teaching it. College costs are definitely out of control, but that's not due to teachers' greed. There are definitely viable alternatives that can work for many. I'm just saying teachers deserve respect and admiration.
I believe federal law requires all liquor to have the name of the actual maker on it. So you can easily tell who makes what generic booze.
If a wine label says it's made in Modesto California, then it's a Gallo wine, as Gallo is the sole winery in Modesto.
As for the cereal, almost all generic cereal is made by Malt-O-Meal or Ralston. If it comes in a bag, it's from Malt-O-Meal.
As for the tweets, second week in a row they sucked!
As for adding in Consumer Reports to the taste testing, I dropped the magazine several years ago for a variety of reasons. But one of them was their absurd request for donations to make up their supposed losses in income. I figured out at that time, instead of asking for donations, all they required was to increase the price of a subscription by $2 a year would've brought in more than double what they were asking for in donations, even allowing for those who canceled due to the increase! The place has been run by idiots for decades. I remember when they said no one needed electric door locks or electric windows in a car. Or their insistence that no one needed a TV bigger than 19". But the worst was their taste test of frozen chicken pot pies, where they said their recipe was better than any frozen one. With the frozen ones, you put them in the oven for 45 minutes & it was done, you could do anything else while that happened. With theirs, it was 30 minutes stirring over a stove & then 15 minutes of baking. Clueless madness from them!
The news probably came out too late to be included in this issue, but the integration of Negro Leagues stats in the baseball HOF was way overdue and the reaction to it shows we still have a long way to go in race relations in this country.
Re: The dog controversy. I’m with the shooter. First, what is to say that this pit bull won’t get loose again and attack someone’s pet or even a person? Most dogs would want to play with the other dog, not attack it. Can you imagine living next door to someone with an obviously dangerous dog? If this dog owner was my neighbor, I’d be concerned every time I, a family member, or guest came and went from my house, especially after an incident like the one described. If I was the corgi owner, I would counter sue.
So almost shooting the dog owner who was trying to pull the dogs apart, and might have succeeded given enough time, is your solution? Imagine a similar scenario where someone you love was the dog owner of the pit bull. You seriously would be okay with someone shooting the dog and risking said loved one’s life?
i've been assaulted a number of time by dogs, bitten once - from behind, by a dog whose owner had her face buried on her screen.
while the shooter's immediate departure was cowardly, her shooting of the pit bull - who would have mauled and maimed the corgi [?], to me was justified. the owner of the pit bull recklessly put himself in harm's way.
I was at Walgreens last weekend. Lady in line ahead of me asked the cashier for Plan B. Cashier couldn't reach the box on the top shelf, but could reach the generic Walgreens version. Is that OK, she asked? No, the customer wanted the brand name Plan B. So I went back there and grabbed it for her lol. I too wouldn't screw around with a generic product in that instance.
Please don’t draw this comparison. Generic meds by law must be as effective and safe as the brand-named equivalent, and they must contain the same active ingredients.
I get that, but considering the millions of people who take generic-form drugs just to stay alive every day while satisfying insurance payment requirements, I’d help to dispel that kind of brand-is-better thinking in general. I worked as a pharmacy tech for 2 years and have been married to a pharmacist for more than 30 — she set me straight on this!
But in the experience of friends and colleagues, the generics may have the same ingredients but are not necessarily absorbed the same. Or are as effective for those people.
Eric, you come down really hard on the woman who shot the dog ... but not nearly hard enough. I recommend about twelve more syllables of profanity. Looking at the video is horrific. The guy has thrown his body on the dog to break up the fight and she pulls a trigger?! He's lucky he was not shot. She's lucky she did not shot him. CPD needs to fire her before she costs the city a million-dollar lawsuit. Meanwhile, my heart breaks for the man whose dog was killed.
My problem with the dog fight & shooting is that no one should be allowed have pit bulls or part pit bulls. They are violent dogs are always attacking other dogs & people.
The cop needs to be fired over this! She could've killed that man!
I can’t wait for the release of season 3 of The Bear. What a wonderful show! It’s extremely entertaining, poignant at times, while dealing rather honestly with issues such as substance abuse, suicide, and how those things impact people in family relationships. Also work/life balance and dysfunctional relationship skills. The show made me cry more than once. Oliver Platt is great as Uncle Jimmy, and Ayo Edebiri and the other actors are great. When I watched the Christmas episode, it reminded me of Christmases in the family in which I grew up (no, my Mom didn’t drive the car into the house).
Gary, you are being particularly I'll tempered today. But I tend to agree with you. Americans claim to love diversity, but extremely judgemental when it comes to accepting it. Question: if FDR had been required to run in the modern media and television era, could he have been elected from a wheelchair?
Big difference! Abbot panders to the MAGA crowd, the racists, the history deniers, and so many others who believe we must return to a happier time for white people who worshipped America without question. FDR had to reassure people that the Great Depression wasn't going to ruin America.
I shall quote from one of my favorite movies, "The American President."
AJ to Andrew Shepherd: "You've said it yourself a million times. If there had been a TV in every living room sixty years ago, this country does not elect a man in a wheelchair."
Also one of my favorite movies. There are a lot of things in the movie comparable to this race. Richard Dreyfus did a nice job of smearing the president merely for falling in love with a woman supposedly with the wrong political views. And the big controversy in the movie was over gun control.
I was also thinking of the line that goes something like: "And you think you're wrong?" (Martin Sheen). The Prez: "I don't think you get elected telling 55 percent (or 65 percent or whatever the percent) of the American people that THEY"RE wrong."
The other big issue was global warming. Remember, this movie came out in 1995- almost 30 years ago, and the Republican Party's stance is still almost exactly where it was when the movie was made - thanks to the Koch brothers' (especially) and Fox News' influence (and other tag-along media outlets). Makes me ill.
Republicans, particularly MAGAs are easy to read. If it's a pocketbook issue, they're against it. Global warming? It's globalists trying to take over the world and raise our taxes. Electric cars? There goes Big Auto. Coal energy? How date they threaten a major industry no matter how much they pollute or how many energy producers are moving away from it. They don't care about future generations. It's about slamming shut pocketbook now.
Great! My laugh for the day! DC does it and every state does it. Elect someone to sit around and breathe just in case the head person croaks and then try and find some way for the person to earn their salary until the head person croaks.
The people once elected a fatty by the name of William Howard Taft. I have read stuff from White House archivists that staffers constantly worried about White House chairs.
A question for EZ on the Royko ebonics column. You said it wouldn't fly today -- do you think that's a good thing ? Is it a shame that such satire would need to be sanitized for fear of offending people? I'm mulling the issue myself (I figured the linked column was the "Mexican" one and I remember believing at the time that he missed the mark on that one) and after rereading the selection I think he should have been sent back to the drawing board. I especially disliked the "hoe" reference as it's a word I find particularly pejorative.
I believe you are missing the point. Yes much of what Rokyo said was objectionable. I believe that was the point. What is objectionable in one community is perfectly acceptable in another. The whole idea behind ebonics was that kids in inner city schools were being hamstrung by the demands of proper English. The argument was that the kids and others in the community could understand each other, so if learning was occurring, what was the big deal? Yes, I know the counter argument, that kids needed to learn the language of the outside world if they wanted to make it outside their home area. By the way, I agree with your depiction of the word "hoe". It's not about the word. It's about an attitude toward women. Good luck with convincing people in black communities that our silver spoon, whitebread attitudes matter.
The idea that black kids are incapable of meeting the demands of proper English is an excellent example of what is commonly known as soft bigotry of low expectations, and is far more racist than anything Royko ever wrote. It’s also an insult to the millions of black people who do speak and write using proper grammar, word usage and pronunciation, and insist that their own kids follow suit.
I remember many years ago, after Howard Stern made his first visit to England, he reported on his radio show that he was shocked to discover that the black people there all spoke English properly, and with all of the command, diction, and eloquence that all of their fellow countrymen are known for.
We know. That's why we rarely hear about ebonics, any more. The biggest problem now is getting kids of any color to read, write, and speak properly. Reading comprehension is down for all races. Kids talk in social media speak. I substitute teach in a number of different districts in primarily white rural areas. Writing is atrocious. I hadn't even thought about ebonics until recent discussions in this forum and it's not at the top of my list of worries about education. By the way, have you given any thought to auto correct in technology? Who needs to know how to proofread and self correct? The computer will do it for you.
I disagree. I think that perpetuating the notion that black people are only capable of using an aggravatingly dumbed down English dialect is a far greater example of looking down, if not punching down one’s elite proboscis at blacks. Royko’s sardonic opener in the referenced column was actually a form of punching up, by way of making the absurdity of the liberal eggheads’ “black kids are too dumb to grasp proper English” proposition plain to see.
Coding error, sorry. It’s fixed now.
How fortumate that the secessionist MAGA southern Illinois counties have the "red" adjacent states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee who will welcome with open arms them and their net state income as like-minded brothers and sisters..
There's a group of loons in Eastern Oregon & Eastern Washington state that want to become part of Greater Idaho. Almost all are violent anti-government types!
As a former resident of eastern Washington, I must disagree with your characterization of its citizens as loons. As far as I can ascertain, no counties in eastern Washington have joined the Greater Idaho movement. While not exactly dazzling urbanites, it is a more populous, and dare I say, sophisticated region than eastern Oregon. Certainly, it has its share of MAGA folks, but I have many progressive friends there as well. Dan Newhouse is not a liberal by any means, but he was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over Jan.6.
Re: alternate brand foods. While in grad school my group of friends did a blind taste test with beer. They were all mass-market pilsner style beers. I can attest that when the taste test is blind, the big differences I perceived when I knew the brand disappeared almost completely. My family did the same thing a few years ago when someone resurrected Hydrox cookies. They are the same as Oreos, but don't say that to fans of Hydrox.
The UP of Michigan also similarly makes noises about seceding from Michigan. My same philosophy applies to the red counties of IL that want to leave: let 'em. Let's see how well they do on their own.
As EZ points out, the effect on the Senate and Electoral College would tilt the country even more to rule by a Republican minority.
Assuming they create their own state. If they just join an already red state, no harm, no foul. Their population numbers are unlikely to lead to a change in house reps or electoral college votes.
Agree, all these folks are represented in Congress. How about getting Washington DC recognized with two senators and some members of the house. They have a population greater than a number of states. I am looking at you Wyoming.
If DC was MAGA, these wackos would be screaming no taxation without representation!
Let’s start pushing for representation and smoke out the vast swarth of Republican hypocrites.
In regards to "Higher Education", usually the experts in their fields are working for a living in their chosen field, not teaching at some university. So that student is paying a lot of money to some so called expert to tell him that he needs to read more. Love to get the students take on that after working in his field of expertise for 40 years. I would find that more interesting and how much of an expert he thinks his professor is now. I've worked over 40 years in my field and when I think back at Junior College the teachers there did work in their field at one point, but not everyday like I did for 40 years. They know some things, but not even close to everything.
Teaching is more than telling someone to read more. There is a talent and skill in the profession of explaining concepts in an understandable way and motivating and fomenting a passion. Sure some people can teach themselves, especially these days with the internet, but those are few. By the same token, being an expert in a field rarely corresponds to having a gift for teaching it. College costs are definitely out of control, but that's not due to teachers' greed. There are definitely viable alternatives that can work for many. I'm just saying teachers deserve respect and admiration.
the rise in college costs is due mostly to increased head count in admin
I believe federal law requires all liquor to have the name of the actual maker on it. So you can easily tell who makes what generic booze.
If a wine label says it's made in Modesto California, then it's a Gallo wine, as Gallo is the sole winery in Modesto.
As for the cereal, almost all generic cereal is made by Malt-O-Meal or Ralston. If it comes in a bag, it's from Malt-O-Meal.
As for the tweets, second week in a row they sucked!
As for adding in Consumer Reports to the taste testing, I dropped the magazine several years ago for a variety of reasons. But one of them was their absurd request for donations to make up their supposed losses in income. I figured out at that time, instead of asking for donations, all they required was to increase the price of a subscription by $2 a year would've brought in more than double what they were asking for in donations, even allowing for those who canceled due to the increase! The place has been run by idiots for decades. I remember when they said no one needed electric door locks or electric windows in a car. Or their insistence that no one needed a TV bigger than 19". But the worst was their taste test of frozen chicken pot pies, where they said their recipe was better than any frozen one. With the frozen ones, you put them in the oven for 45 minutes & it was done, you could do anything else while that happened. With theirs, it was 30 minutes stirring over a stove & then 15 minutes of baking. Clueless madness from them!
here's some of my TOW submissions that were rejected over the years, maybe you like them better:
**You know what's cheaper than therapy? ... Admitting you're batshit crazy and running with it.
**Kids: there is a world of difference between 6, 6.5 and 7.
Adults: you know technically I don't turn 40 until the afternoon of my birthday when I was born!
**the perfect excuse: I'd love to but this is my weekend to date Taylor Swift
**I make money every time I enter the casino. That I work there is beside the point
**My new job is tough. I have to survey women to see what shampoo they use. Everyone says the same thing: get the F$%K out of my shower!
https://x.com/search?lang=en&q=Tweetoftheweek%20(from%3AMysteriesOLife)&src=typed_query
Sorry, but they also suck!
at least they aren't any worse
True, but that's not anything to brag about!
you must be a blast at parties...if anyone actually invites you to a party.
I like the casino one.
Many thanks to Sue Marshall for that lovely song.
The news probably came out too late to be included in this issue, but the integration of Negro Leagues stats in the baseball HOF was way overdue and the reaction to it shows we still have a long way to go in race relations in this country.
And I’d like Eric to compare the White Sox dismal record to that of the 1926 Dayton Marcos. (6-36)
agree that the add'n of Negro League stats to MLB stats was long overdue.
Re: The dog controversy. I’m with the shooter. First, what is to say that this pit bull won’t get loose again and attack someone’s pet or even a person? Most dogs would want to play with the other dog, not attack it. Can you imagine living next door to someone with an obviously dangerous dog? If this dog owner was my neighbor, I’d be concerned every time I, a family member, or guest came and went from my house, especially after an incident like the one described. If I was the corgi owner, I would counter sue.
So almost shooting the dog owner who was trying to pull the dogs apart, and might have succeeded given enough time, is your solution? Imagine a similar scenario where someone you love was the dog owner of the pit bull. You seriously would be okay with someone shooting the dog and risking said loved one’s life?
i've been assaulted a number of time by dogs, bitten once - from behind, by a dog whose owner had her face buried on her screen.
while the shooter's immediate departure was cowardly, her shooting of the pit bull - who would have mauled and maimed the corgi [?], to me was justified. the owner of the pit bull recklessly put himself in harm's way.
Re generic products...
I was at Walgreens last weekend. Lady in line ahead of me asked the cashier for Plan B. Cashier couldn't reach the box on the top shelf, but could reach the generic Walgreens version. Is that OK, she asked? No, the customer wanted the brand name Plan B. So I went back there and grabbed it for her lol. I too wouldn't screw around with a generic product in that instance.
Please don’t draw this comparison. Generic meds by law must be as effective and safe as the brand-named equivalent, and they must contain the same active ingredients.
You're right. But I understand the peace of mind of a name brand, in that moment.
I get that, but considering the millions of people who take generic-form drugs just to stay alive every day while satisfying insurance payment requirements, I’d help to dispel that kind of brand-is-better thinking in general. I worked as a pharmacy tech for 2 years and have been married to a pharmacist for more than 30 — she set me straight on this!
But in the experience of friends and colleagues, the generics may have the same ingredients but are not necessarily absorbed the same. Or are as effective for those people.
Some generics work fine for me, others don't.
Well that’s exactly the question! Which work?
Eric, you come down really hard on the woman who shot the dog ... but not nearly hard enough. I recommend about twelve more syllables of profanity. Looking at the video is horrific. The guy has thrown his body on the dog to break up the fight and she pulls a trigger?! He's lucky he was not shot. She's lucky she did not shot him. CPD needs to fire her before she costs the city a million-dollar lawsuit. Meanwhile, my heart breaks for the man whose dog was killed.
My problem with the dog fight & shooting is that no one should be allowed have pit bulls or part pit bulls. They are violent dogs are always attacking other dogs & people.
The cop needs to be fired over this! She could've killed that man!
You should meet the several Pit Bulls I'm familiar with -- they might kill you by licking you to death. And, your name isn't spelled correctly ;)
Dale, I agree that was a bad outcome. But should we check with Trump and the RNC to see if it is their approved solution?
😆😂
I think Governor Noem has an opinion on this situation..
An excellent column by Jamie Raskin about how to remove Alito from certain deliberations:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/opinion/alito-thomas-recuse-trump-jan-6.html
I can’t wait for the release of season 3 of The Bear. What a wonderful show! It’s extremely entertaining, poignant at times, while dealing rather honestly with issues such as substance abuse, suicide, and how those things impact people in family relationships. Also work/life balance and dysfunctional relationship skills. The show made me cry more than once. Oliver Platt is great as Uncle Jimmy, and Ayo Edebiri and the other actors are great. When I watched the Christmas episode, it reminded me of Christmases in the family in which I grew up (no, my Mom didn’t drive the car into the house).
Generic travel packs of Miralax are very difficult to open. Get the name brand. Do not ask me how I know this.
Pritzker is a fool if he thinks he can get elected president.
There's a huge group of haters that will never vote for a Jew & yet another group that won't vote for a guy that needs to lose 100 pounds!
Combine the two groups & it spells LOSER!
Gary, you are being particularly I'll tempered today. But I tend to agree with you. Americans claim to love diversity, but extremely judgemental when it comes to accepting it. Question: if FDR had been required to run in the modern media and television era, could he have been elected from a wheelchair?
I don't know about the entire country, but Texas keeps reelecting Abbot who's in a wheelchair.
Big difference! Abbot panders to the MAGA crowd, the racists, the history deniers, and so many others who believe we must return to a happier time for white people who worshipped America without question. FDR had to reassure people that the Great Depression wasn't going to ruin America.
I shall quote from one of my favorite movies, "The American President."
AJ to Andrew Shepherd: "You've said it yourself a million times. If there had been a TV in every living room sixty years ago, this country does not elect a man in a wheelchair."
Also one of my favorite movies. There are a lot of things in the movie comparable to this race. Richard Dreyfus did a nice job of smearing the president merely for falling in love with a woman supposedly with the wrong political views. And the big controversy in the movie was over gun control.
I was also thinking of the line that goes something like: "And you think you're wrong?" (Martin Sheen). The Prez: "I don't think you get elected telling 55 percent (or 65 percent or whatever the percent) of the American people that THEY"RE wrong."
The other big issue was global warming. Remember, this movie came out in 1995- almost 30 years ago, and the Republican Party's stance is still almost exactly where it was when the movie was made - thanks to the Koch brothers' (especially) and Fox News' influence (and other tag-along media outlets). Makes me ill.
Republicans, particularly MAGAs are easy to read. If it's a pocketbook issue, they're against it. Global warming? It's globalists trying to take over the world and raise our taxes. Electric cars? There goes Big Auto. Coal energy? How date they threaten a major industry no matter how much they pollute or how many energy producers are moving away from it. They don't care about future generations. It's about slamming shut pocketbook now.
Years ago New York wanted to get rid of their governor so sent Teddy Roosevelt to Washington as VP. It is a way to get rid of a guy.
Great! My laugh for the day! DC does it and every state does it. Elect someone to sit around and breathe just in case the head person croaks and then try and find some way for the person to earn their salary until the head person croaks.
We elected a guy who needs to lose a hundred pounds eight years ago and, regrettably, are about to elect him again.
The people once elected a fatty by the name of William Howard Taft. I have read stuff from White House archivists that staffers constantly worried about White House chairs.
sad but probably true
Yeah, I guess he’d never be able to be elected governor of a populous state.
A question for EZ on the Royko ebonics column. You said it wouldn't fly today -- do you think that's a good thing ? Is it a shame that such satire would need to be sanitized for fear of offending people? I'm mulling the issue myself (I figured the linked column was the "Mexican" one and I remember believing at the time that he missed the mark on that one) and after rereading the selection I think he should have been sent back to the drawing board. I especially disliked the "hoe" reference as it's a word I find particularly pejorative.
I believe you are missing the point. Yes much of what Rokyo said was objectionable. I believe that was the point. What is objectionable in one community is perfectly acceptable in another. The whole idea behind ebonics was that kids in inner city schools were being hamstrung by the demands of proper English. The argument was that the kids and others in the community could understand each other, so if learning was occurring, what was the big deal? Yes, I know the counter argument, that kids needed to learn the language of the outside world if they wanted to make it outside their home area. By the way, I agree with your depiction of the word "hoe". It's not about the word. It's about an attitude toward women. Good luck with convincing people in black communities that our silver spoon, whitebread attitudes matter.
The idea that black kids are incapable of meeting the demands of proper English is an excellent example of what is commonly known as soft bigotry of low expectations, and is far more racist than anything Royko ever wrote. It’s also an insult to the millions of black people who do speak and write using proper grammar, word usage and pronunciation, and insist that their own kids follow suit.
I remember many years ago, after Howard Stern made his first visit to England, he reported on his radio show that he was shocked to discover that the black people there all spoke English properly, and with all of the command, diction, and eloquence that all of their fellow countrymen are known for.
We know. That's why we rarely hear about ebonics, any more. The biggest problem now is getting kids of any color to read, write, and speak properly. Reading comprehension is down for all races. Kids talk in social media speak. I substitute teach in a number of different districts in primarily white rural areas. Writing is atrocious. I hadn't even thought about ebonics until recent discussions in this forum and it's not at the top of my list of worries about education. By the way, have you given any thought to auto correct in technology? Who needs to know how to proofread and self correct? The computer will do it for you.
I point you to: they're, there and their, not to mention your and you're.
The problem is that Royko was, unlike him generally, punching down. The result is rarely funny and often, as in the case, patronizngly offensive.
I disagree. I think that perpetuating the notion that black people are only capable of using an aggravatingly dumbed down English dialect is a far greater example of looking down, if not punching down one’s elite proboscis at blacks. Royko’s sardonic opener in the referenced column was actually a form of punching up, by way of making the absurdity of the liberal eggheads’ “black kids are too dumb to grasp proper English” proposition plain to see.