God help me, but she was sane and adorable in what I feel must have been a NYTimes Styles or Sunday Magazine piece last year. Andrew's mama apparently thinks her lasagna sucks, though.
I've been telling myself that 2012 - 2008 = four years worth of teenagers who can now vote, and four years of racist old people who have now died.
She entirely failed to tablescape-up the office for holidays at Andy's last job. Not that she should have, I'm just saying that her influence on the fabulousness of state decor may be limited.
And my gorge just rose a little thinking about what she'd be likely to do to lasagna. A surprise layer of corn nuts?
A surprise layer of corn nuts?
Frosting.
5: I was never a big Friends fan, but there was an episode where a bad cook tried to make trifle, but two pages in the cookbook were stuck together so the last half of the recipe was a shepherd's pie recipe. "A layer of ladyfingers, a layer of jello, a layer of whipped cream, a layer of ground beef, a layer of peas..."
Oh sweet Christ. Campbell's Condesed Tomato Soup and cottage cheese.
2: There must be someone who has made an estimate of how many votes per year the Democrats gain due to die-off and Mexification.
7: She can still be sane and adorable even if she's a terrible terrible awful cook who gets paid for it.
6: I wasn't a big fan either, but I remember that one.
At the time, I thought Friends was basically funny, although I didn't watch it regularly. Now when I see re-runs, it's mind-boggling how much recycled vaudeville material is in there. (I've never watched much vaudeville, but that recycled set-up/response style.)
Friends: The last time teevee's "young people" were older than me.
10: But you have to weigh that against the lossage to conservification as people get mugged age.
Actually, I do wonder if there is enough exit polling data around to try to build that model. Weekend avoid house/yardwork project found!
14: Yep. All downhill from here.
15: Plus the rate of conservification of Mexicans as they get wealthier.
Unfortunately, as LB says, the state institutions tend to dull the weirdness of the celebrity (also, most of the SL tablescape madness comes from the producers, not her). Arnold and Jesse the Body were quite boring in off
I have to say I kinda like Sandra Lee. I am glad for her existence on the globe. What can I say, I have a thing for crazy drunks.
Mexicans become conservative as they get wealthier, but conservatives who get poorer become Guatemalan.
"Guatemalans on Ice" wouldn't work as well as "Sesame Street on Ice."
"I have a thing for crazy drunks + ice".
10, 15, 17: On the plus side, more poor people, fewer but richer rich people. Thanks, rising Gini coefficient!
Speaking of richer rich people, there's always something to spend more money on.
17: I thought there was only one rich Mexican. Besides the drug lords, who don't vote in the traditional way.
25: But who among us doesn't have a basement full of expensive, erotic statues of ourselves copulating with members of our harem?
29: apo hires drama students to create tableaux vivants in his living room.
29: Neither do I, but I rent one out for erotic statue storage purposes.
God, I had completely forgotten that Sandra Lee was Cuomo's girlfriend. Well, that's okay! She's, uh, well, that's okay, that's fine!
If I had known Sandra Lee was Cuomo's girlfriend, I would have paid more attention to this election.
If I'd have known I could get your attention so easily, I would have had time to think of a recipe that didn't use Dinty Moore stew as its main ingredient.
"I will cook," Lee answered, looking distractedly at the table in front of her. "And do you know what I'm going to bring when I go to the governor's mansion? Great garnishes!"
Lee may be slated to become this generation's Martha Stewart. And there's nothing wrong with that. I don't mean the part about conviction of crimes; I refer to the part about decorating waste baskets with glued-on seashells.
If you keep the waste baskets in the ocean, barnacles will attach themselves. Pretty much the same thing and the "glue" is all natural and hoof-free.
Is there any indication Sandra Lee is anything more culturally significant than one of the many, many cable cooking shows? I never hear about her except online [/kael].
She's the First Lady of New York, yo.
I had forgotten that book, but in any case it seems like there should be enough information to build a pretty good quantitative model. I want a countdown, damn it.
it will become politically easier for Republicans to adopt a more conciliatory tone toward Hispanics, as they surely must do to avoid electoral doom.
This is one thing that GWB, as a Texan, understood really, really well. The California GOP made a fateful choice, which has been remembered, to be the anti-Mexican party, and has basically been consigned to doom as a majority party ever since. The Texas GOP, though crazy, has generally been careful to avoid that mistake, for complicated reasons. I think the GOP establishment, quite rightly, views the anti-immigration groundswell as a serious long-term danger.
I think the GOP establishment, quite rightly, views the anti-immigration groundswell as a serious long-term danger.
If I had Halford's job as Emperor I would acknowledge the problem as one of illegal immigration, and subsequently reform ICE and allow 2 million Mexicans (of all kinds) per year into the US. After all, the claim is that it is the illegal part that is so terrible, not the immigrant part.
I think the GOP establishment, quite rightly, views the anti-immigration groundswell as a serious long-term danger.
I can recall hearing of Karl Rove explicitly seeking to re-align Latinos with the GOP, seeing them as a natural fit (Catholic, family-oriented) and a replacement for the racist geezers dying off. Not sure what happened to that plan.
46: "Break me off, show me what you got, 'cuz I don't need no one" -- Minuteman
Not sure what happened to that plan.
Fox News and Rush Limbaugh et al. reacted very strongly negatively to it, and (white) Republican voters rebelled against it.
I can recall hearing of Karl Rove explicitly seeking to re-align Latinos with the GOP, seeing them as a natural fit (Catholic, family-oriented) and a replacement for the racist geezers dying off. Not sure what happened to that plan.
Apparently the GOP is seeing great things in Marco Rubio now. He's Cuban-American! So he's being groomed for a starring role in the party for 2012.
I'm not sure whether any old Latino is the same as any other Latino in the minds and affections of the Hispanic population, to be honest, so I don't know whether this is kind of a bone-headed thought process on the GOP's part.
The GOP misunderstands identity politics. They were also expecting 'great things' from Clarence Thomas and Janice Rogers Brown.
And Bobby Jindal. And Michael Steele. Rubio is apparently pretty silver-tongued, though; I haven't actually heard him speak myself.
For which they can be excused, I think: they just think everyone is as shallow, tribal, and stupid as their own base. (Was Atwater right when he got GHWB to say during campaign 1988 that fried pork rinds were his favorite snack? He was.)
Identity politics is even trickier for Republican minority politicians than for Democratic ones. See for example Nikki Haley having to completely forswear any, even purely cultural sentiment for the Sikh traditions she grew up with. Nor does Jindal ever reference Indian ones, though in his case I suspect he might genuinely believe Hinduism is devil worship. Rubio had to act all contrite when he indicated a bit of Hispanic solidarity influenced unease with the Arizona immigration law.
Speaking of identity politics (of a sort) -- and not wanting to step on any toes or cause distress -- but isn't Russ Feingold Jewish? There's some talk of him challenging Obama for the Dem presidential nomination in 2012; but much as I truly hate to say it, I'm not sure these United States would be up for a Jewish President. Then again, I didn't think a black President was in the cards either.
Obviously as far as I'm concerned, these things don't make a damn bit of difference, and I'm ready for an atheist transgender President any time one wants to step up to the plate.
I don't think the country is ready for any flavour of Dem president in the 2012 elections that isn't a half Kenyan Muslim from Indonesia. Dems don't win when blacks decide to stay home.
Should I bother to form an opinion about Clyburn vs Hoyer for Minority Whip? It seems to be the story of the moment but I'm not sure if I care. I'm very glad to see Pelosi maintaining her leadership position, though.
I don't know either. It's not hard to see positives on both sides, for both Clyburn and Hoyer. I prefer Clyburn personally, but it's really about who can do the best job putting together a Congressional voting coalition, and Hoyer seems to have a good track record there -- though admittedly working with a rather more moderate group of Dems than he would be now.
I dunno. A person would kind of have to walk through exactly who the progressives supporting Hoyer right now are, and what their reasoning is. Which I don't feel like doing right now.
I suspect a lot of the support has to do with pure internal caucus patronage politics. Hoyer has long had a lot of goodies to hand out.
I suspect a lot of the support has to do with pure internal caucus patronage politics.
And if that's the case, well, look: Republicans have a ruling majority in the House now, so what's the Dem plan supposed to be? Surely trying to keep Dems from crossing party lines is irrelevant. That was relevant in the last congress, and Hoyer was helpful there, but it's not going to be in the new congress*.
Ultimately, since I can't really think this through far enough into the future, I trust Pelosi to make the call.
* There is the issue of the lame-duck Congress: there's a tax-cut debate coming up. We don't know whether that will be settled and come up for a vote in the lame-duck Congress, but it's possible that the choice of House Minority Whip is important there. Maybe Pelosi feels that Hoyer is inclined to compromise too much.
What I'm saying is that for many of Hoyer's progressive supporters it's not about ideology or effectiveness or what's good for the party or country, it's just about holding up their end of the deal. He's handed out a lot of stuff to them with the implicit or explicit expectation that they would support him in leadership races. Now they're doing that, as they did in the Murtha one. Though I'm not at all convinced that Murtha would have been any better. Both up to their eyeballs in relationships with the lobbyists, both non-progressives, Murtha with more baggage and less health.
Hoyer isn't going to build an airport up in the nowhere parts of the hills.