Separately, I also belatedly realized the "no diamonds during the day" thing I complained about in Heebie's thread is a rule I honor more in the breech
You have diamond studded breeches? Awesome.
OK, I'll correct it now, but for the record ginger yellow was a little bitchright.
Little known fact: Ray Charles wrote "Georgia on my mind" about George R. R. Martin, but his record label made him change it.
Just to join in the BALBAI, but "a rule more honoured in the breach than in the observance" doesn't actually mean "a rule more often broken than followed"; it means "a rule that it's more honourable to break than to follow". ie it's not "I wear diamonds during the day a lot", it's "I think it's good to wear diamonds during the day, whatever the rule is".
On rereading, it's possible that this is what alameida meant, in which case sorry.
God, I hope this turns into another guns thread.
GUNS RULE MAN!!! my dad just bought an amazing new assault rifle. he has a huge-ass gun safe to keep them safely in, barring the ones he wants to shott intruders with right this minute. OK, we can stop now. guns are for the other thread.
ajay: I realized i meant that when I reflected more deeply. I favor french butter "president," unsalted.
I'm impressed that Narnia has a sufficient market for French butter to make it worth importing. I agree that French unsalted is the way to go, but I'm afraid economic contingencies usually constrain us to Irish or Danish unsalted except for special occasions. Where does the good butter in American come from?
I had some pretty good fresh butter in Switzerland.
Where they also have guns.
I thought the Swiss debate was always chocolate vs. clocks.
yes, I used to favor lurpak but president is enough better to be worth it. there's no local butter in narnia, so they have to import everything. but more accurately, narnia has every foodstuff conceivable. bovril? tim-tams? quinoa? quince paste? have, lah.
there isn't any good butter in america, as it happens. american butter is 1/4 water, crumbly and unsatisfactory. good butter in america comes from france. one would think that there would be delicious farmer's market butter, as there is chevre, but no. I think the us gov't has made rules which overwhelmingly favor the industrial producers.
Quinoa Tim-Tams? Quince Tim-Tams? Tim-Tam butter?
my story is too sad and gross for you to talk about david bowie, isn't it? but come on, that's a serious achievement. I promise not to cry if you talk about how amazing david bowie is. god, all my family stories are conversation-stoppers, it's pitiful.
Yeah, re: President unsalted. Butter is one of those things I see no point in economizing on as we use so little. One stick/block lasts weeks. So it's the good stuff, or nothing. We've also been buying Lescure, which is my personal favourite, I think.
http://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Beurre-Lescure-Butter/49050011
14: an australian person has probably tried all those things. they are fucking nuts about tim-tams.
I think the us gov't has made rules which overwhelmingly favor the industrial producers.
Seems a shame, but as I understand it, 40 years ago there was no decent cheese; now there is, so maybe somebody can get round this too.
but more accurately, narnia has every foodstuff conceivable.
Are Narnians just very catholic/adventurous eaters, or are there just enough of every community to make this work? (In the rest of the world, AFAIK, Bovril consumption is now more or less restricted to British football grounds on cold match days.)
Where does the good butter in American come
from?
Ireland. Kerry Gold is the best widely (at least in posher locales) distributed brand that I have come across.
Bowie has always seemed kind of opaque and inaccessible to me. I have wondered what people find so sympathetic or moving about him. Which is a different sort of speculation from wondering why on earth anyone would burn a calorie in defense of Elvis Costello, of course.
At the weekend we went to Pembrokeshire - almost 4 hour drive each way. Musical accompaniment was provided by the RSC/Dennis Kelly/Tim Minchin Matilda soundtrack (several times).
There was great excitement at the Severn Bridge (yes, the old one) toll where we were in the next lane to a van that was the same as ours (except a few years older), also with the middle row of seats removed, also with 3 kids in the back. By the time we'd each paid our tolls the kids were all pointing and waving at each other, but then we drove off and left our new friends behind.
19: I think Whole Foods sells Kerry Gold, as well as some other Eire brands.
re: 15
Bowie was on TV last night, in the final credits of a documentary about men's tailoring. My wife [who lurrrvs Bowie] opined that the price he struck for his bargain with the devil was the teeth ...
Anyway, sod butter, I'm having toast and dripping for lunch.
re: 20
Dozens of great songs, great singing voice, and, by pop standards, an absurdly long period of sustained creativity and invention/reinvention? Possibly more important in the UK, I suppose, as an influence, but I'd find it hard to question anyone who wanted to stick him right up there in the pop 'canon'.
Hell, they sell Kerry Gold at Gristedes (entirely generic NYC corner grocery chain). There's good local butter (I have cultured butter from Ronnybrook Dairy in my fridge right now) and all manner of French butter (I have Pamplie with salt crystals in the fridge too).
24. good move. I'm having cheese on toast with chili sauce.
David Bowie is best. ( I saw an interview with Iman where they asked her if she picked out her husband's clothes form him. "Dare to dress Bowie?! NO!")
Gah. I am butterless. Lunch today = small pot of tuna, a salad with prawns, and a pastrami and mustard sandwich. Not really lunch as such. Breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack.
25: 20 partakes more of phenomenology than canonology.
Also, rockist.
20. Rejecting Bowie AND Costello out of hand sounds like ornery contrarianism to me.
one would think that there would be delicious farmer's market butter, as there is chevre, but no.
Ca existe! And it can't be long before it starts filtering down to the swipple mass market.
31: On the question of Elvis Costello, I stand with David Lee Roth.
re: 30
Rockist? Me? Hahahah. I'm about the least rockist music fan you'll meet.
incredible music, many different creative periods, worked with other amazing artists, the hottness. I think watching labyrinth at an impressionable age sealed the deal such that my mom, my sister and I all have huge crushes on david bowie. his eyes are two different colors! he wrote "five years!" he was in the man who fell to earth!
34: No, no, I meant that 20 was, because of the assumed superiority of "unaffected" identity and performativity to Bowie's/Costello's something Lady Gaga something feminism something.
31: flippanter can write an article for slate about how both david bowie and elvis costello secretly suck.
I don't know if Costello has ever commented on the subject, but I imagine I might well stand with him on the subject of David Lee Roth.
secretly suck because flippanter is the real feminist!
I mean, Life on fucking Mars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--IqqusnNQ
There are consistently great songs pretty much solidly from Space Oddity on until the early 80s. And he's a much under-rated singer, imho. Leaving aside the reinvention, and the image, he has a great way with a melody.
Is "Five Years" the very best song ever? Maybe!
Here's coke-head 70s Bowie bringing the funk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bYOZdM2tpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW9x7OkwpxA
re: 36
I don't know what you are talking about. There's nothing unaffected about Bowie. It's all artifice. He's pretty much the ur-not-at-all-rockist artist.
"Rockist" sounds like some sort of Soviet term of abuse, but on checking I see that the actual word was "rokeri" and referred to motorcycle gangs. (Actually "horde" is probably a better term).
44: Comity.
OT: CGI blood is many years from being as convincing as the corn-syrup-and-food-coloring stuff, producers of The Wizards of Waverly Place Ninja Assassin.
I was thinking in the car on the way in this morning about the malign influence of punk on music criticism.
the onion a.v. club is pretty solid on this kind of thing. I don't know that they've done a gateway to geekery for david bowie, but they are generally good.
47: in the cab on the way to work this morning, I was thinking about sex. you're pretty high-minded if your thoughts drift off to the malign influence of punk on music criticism. granted that it is, indeed, malign, and has infected even many artists with problematic ideas about what counts as "authenticity."
re: 50
Yes, this is why I am deeply boring. [Or given to trains of thought sparked by the music on the radio] Trains are for thinking about sex.
Authenticity, difficulty of, thwarted disparagement of, sad hipster backlash against, crappy dissertation subtitles referencing, etc., etc., could prove a rich vein of unfoggedry.
I think Whole Foods sells Kerry Gold, as well as some other Eire brands.
They also have Lurpak, but it is obscenely expensive. The best bang for your butter buck here is to get find a "cultured butter," the more local/organic/crunchy the better.
I wonder if David Bowie likes butter.
Or guns.
I just get the cheapest organic butter, because we use a great deal of it. My son would eat the stuff if we let him.
can't he like butter and guns, like normal people. yes to cultured butter.
51: if you yourself were driving then I see why you'd want to keep it on the straight and narrow. I never drive, anywhere, ever, so I can muse as I please.
god, all my family stories are conversation-stoppers
57: truly people, on this one, you should rtfa. all true.
Did Bowie ever stop generating good new music? The only post-Scary Monsters album I have is Earthling and there's quite a bit there that I like, even if it doesn't rise to the level of his stuff from the 70s. I have a general sense that most of his post-1980 albums are viewed as bad, but somehow I can't really imagine that he's capable of going completely off the rails.
Not to deny Bowie's importance or anything, but he's never done that much for me. I don't know, there's a class of musicians where I don't hear enough Jes Grew, and it doesn't get past the frontbrain.
Obviously, though, anytime a song is part of the soundtrack of my life, it's a completely different thing.
bad production laid a lot of talented artists low in the 80s. drum machines, heavy synth bass, glossy smoothness--a lot went very wrong. the songs themselves are often good and would make great acoustic songs.
20, 30, 34, 44:
I thought Flippanter was saying that he, Flippanter, himself was copping to having a phenomenological
reaction to Bowie that might be called a rockist one.
Then again, I think a lot of things.
I have an even better second hand Easy-Off story. Probably already told it. I'll look. Later.
63: Yeah, that was how I read it.
Not to deny Bowie's importance or anything, but he's never done that much for me.
For me, you could replace "Bowie" with a very great percentage of the performers that have generated wide acclaim and that sentence would be accurate.
63: One of Many, you get me.
Although I'd probably distinguish my lack of response to Bowie from my rockiest tendencies, the latter of which surely cannot be said to be acute, because I hate Bruce Springsteen.
57, 59: I like the discussion of southern nicknames. My mom's family's stories always involve people with names like Skeeter, Sweet-Pea, Blackie, and Scooter.
I hate Bruce Springsteen
You go too far, sir.
re: 60
I quite like Let's Dance and that period, and I don't even find the Tin Machine stuff completely horrible, which some people seem to. I've not really paid attention to his most recent stuff -- heard a few tracks but not full albums -- but when I've seen him perform live on TV recently he still seems pretty good, and the newer stuff fine, even if not amazing. His voice is still good.
68: My Southern friend tends to get annoyed when I interrupt his stories to ask for a primer on who Meemaw and Earlene are.
re: 63/65
Huh. I must be stupid. I assumed that because I mad an off-hand reference to a pop 'canon' that Flippanter was assuming I was making some rockist pro-Bowie claim.
even better? that better be one fine-ass story, dawg.
hating bruce springsteen...eh if you've really given the early stuff a good listen and there's nothing happening for you so be it. but who can be rockist and not appreciate the song "ziggy stardust"? one of the most classic, recognizable, fucking rock-n-roll guitar riffs of all time? what, are you some sort of esoteric rockist who also hates led zeppelin?
71: then you are unlikely to get any of aunt ernestine's fried peach pies, which is truly your loss.
and listen to "rebel rebel." the opening riff? none more rock.
I love Zeppelin like I love Jesus America things filled with caramel Americas filled with caramel by Jesus.
Damn I saw the Spiders in 72 in a small student venue which they'd signed up to before the album went galactic and I can safely say that they rocked the fucking shit out of the place. They did a lot of other stuff too - that was only part of the show, but they. did. rock. I have seen Cream, I have seen Hendrix, I have seen Zep, I have seen a bunch of guys, but the Spiders could rock with them all. And do a lot of other stuff too.
Mentioning which leads to to google in a desultory way and discover that Mick Ronson was a Mormon. You never know.
Rockism, in the sense that Wylie and various 'inky' music journalists meant it, is more to do with ideas about authenticity than it is to do with specifically making a rock noise. Although that's part of it, too. Androgynous polymorphic self-consciously 'artificial' musicians wouldn't be 'proper' music.
I don't necessarily buy into the whole 'rockist' critique -- it's sometimes wielded as a blunt instrument -- but there's something in it.
78: But there are two Mick Ronsons, right? One was in Foreigner.
re: 80
According to wiki the 'Bowie' Ronson was raised as a Mormon.
Wait no -- the Ronson kids are the step-kids of Foreigner's Mick Jones. So confusing.
Recent immigrant very impressed with how well EZ Off, recommended by American cow-orker, works in oven. Lightbulb goes off: sprays Ez Off on car. Drives car through carwash; emerges dull stainless steel. Gah! Porsche behind emerges splotchy. Immigrant hightails it.
80. This woud be Mick Ronson as in Bowie/Hunter/Dylan etc.
Are you thinking of Mick Jones? There are two of them - one in Foreigner, one in the Clash/BAD.
83: Are you sure that wasn't an episode of Perfect Strangers?
85: In America, caustic chemicals something something you.
83: not a better story. sorry cc.
I just don't see any account based on authenticity in which david bowie of the ziggy period is artificial while mick jagger during the same period is authentic, which would seem to result in the rolling stones not being rock, and then I think it's fair to say you've gone off the rails.
chris, no no, the clash is good and foreigner BAD. you've got it turned round. good night all! I'm going to bed early so I can wake up and see my children before I SELL FURNITURE. fuck we've had an awful week +. I better make mad cash tomorrow.
Life on Mars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6l8zrsf4LY
62 is very true, as proven by the fact that this version of Europe's "The Final Countdown" -- played on a combination kazoo-ukelele-toy piano -- sounds better and tonally richer than the original.
also to 77: JEALOUS!! and flippanter, have you ever watched a live zeppelin performance (I mean from the 70s). that thing that they're doing is authentic, but david bowie is not? did you notice what the fuck robert plant is wearing? incidentally, I watched some old zep concerts for the first time recently, and I thought, god I can't believe he's wearing that ridiculous vest and tossing his curls about like a fucking gaylord, and then 10 seconds later I thought, who cares what he's wearing, I really want to fuck robert plant. mmm, eel-like hiplessness and fringed vest. so whatever they were doing was working.
I've always been baffled by the notion that there are types of butter that taste different from other types of butter. But that's true of red wine as well.
The thing about Bowie today is that he's kind of relentlessly normal, which just doesn't seem like Bowie at all.
He also claims to literally not remember most of the period of his best work, I'm told. Like, not, "oh man I blacked out for two days after that amazing party at Mick Jagger's house" but like "I have no memory of anything at all between 1971 and 1981 and cannot be held responsible for my actions."
The immigrant tells it way better than I do, but I'll accept that verdict.
On not really appreciating the whole glam thing, I'll confess to being well out of the mainstream. I just spent the 70s on other things, I guess.
Much of "rockism" (which I agree is just too blunt a critique, but describes something) is just "don't like the gheys" and Bowie is for some reason over the line, whereas Plant and Jagger's relentless fucking of women keeps them on team straight despite some amazingly ludicrous outfits.
re: 94
Gheys and black people. Or rather black people who aren't some grizzled bluesman.
I saw LZ in 1977 and RP was wearing a t-shirt that said Nurses Do It Better. Or something like that. It was one of Bill Graham's early DOG shows, and Plant comes out, squints, and says 'so this is daylight.'
LZ strikes me as a fairly small step ahead in the musical tradition(s) they were playing in, while Bowie much much more of an innovation. I don't know what authenticity even means in this kind of context. Bowie was obviously and inarguably authentic within his particular genre which is, as I see it, heavily built on artifice.
And the grizzled bluesman thing is itself a load of bullshit. Naturally.
There's nothing unaffected about Bowie. It's all artifice.
Even Low?
BAD is Big Audio Dynamite.
I was going to ask yesterday whether women had power fantasies. I'm middle-aged now, and no longer all that interested in imposing my will on strangers. But I would really like to be able to levitate, and now have a thing for basejumping videos.
And the grizzled bluesman thing is itself a load of bullshit. Naturally.
Even when Hugh Laurie does it?
Heh at 99.
I meant more the idea that various country blues revivalists were somehow more authentic than, say, Duke Ellington or T-Bone Walker.
I love Zeppelin like I love [...] Americas filled with caramel by Jesus.
Last night Tweety and I went to this new-ish bar for the first time, and it had very good cocktails and decent food and decor, and then they played Zeppelin. Which makes the bar less cool, but made me happy anyway.
I like Bowie but I can see why someone might call his stuff 'opaque and inaccessible', and I think it's related to the reason some rockists would put Bowie in a different category to the Stones and the Velvet Underground, the basis being that they feel they know what the songs are about, emotionally-speaking, in the case of the latter two, but not so much in the case of Bowie. (About which feeling you can argue as to whether it's just an indication of the rockists' limited horizons.) They might use the language of 'artifice' vs. 'authenticity', but I think that's what they are pointing to. Like, "rockism" is said in many ways, but that would be one of them.
In that other thread, it was remarked how much the digitalization of music has affected the life of the geek. Any noob can download off the internet in an hour what it took an 80s person with fringe tastes months and months to learn about and find.
There was an earlier version of this, around about 1980. In the 1970s, there was much less visual access to musicians. Especially the early 70s (and 60s). You could see them on album covers. You could see them live, if you lived a place where they went, could afford the time and money, got a ticket. (And were old enough -- as measured by parents --which is how I missed Hendrix in 1970). You could see them on TV, if they were popular enough to get on, in a 3 network world (60s & early 70s) or basic cable. The occasional movie. Access to their private lives was even more limited. Disasters, yes. But not much coverage outside of a very small circle, other than Rolling Stone. Which wasn't exactly on every newstand everywhere. And even there, a feature story or two each month that might get into a performer's private life. Beyond that, it was all rumor and urban legend.
Iirc West Coast opinion of Jagger was decidedly unflattering in the wake of Altamont.
Wait, Blume likes Zeppelin? Rock on sister. I hope you play a lot of it at home, loud. If you could do so while wearing a Lakers jersey . . . Ok I should end this now.
88 is remarkably fine. I'm intrigued to discover that the Portuguese for "Life on Mars" appears to be "Life on Mars".
he wrote "five years!"
I've been listening again to the live version that Halford posted a while ago. Amazing! I've been meaning to put up a blog post about that for a bit.
More good Bowie videos. I really enjoy the third (and final) video that I link in that post -- it isn't as good a performance musically, but Bowie's so effortlessly charming singing with his arm around Gail Ann Dorsey.
(a) Isn't plugra supposed to be decent american butter? I don't know, because I have no taste.
(b) It's not the influence of punk rock on music criticism, it's the influence of moron punk rock critics on music criticism. As we all know these days, actual punk rock musicians occasionally had musical opinions that would have gotten them exiled to Siberia if they were anyone else (I am, of course, thinking about the imagined punk/prog "conflict").
(c) Maybe a cool bar that plays Zep is actually cooler than a cool bar that plays relentlessly and, one wishes one didn't have to say it so explicitly, obviously "cool" music, because the former bar says: I can be cool even without aping your foolish trends and decking myself out with signifiers for the aid of the undiscerning! As yer man says, "Man sagt mit großer Auszeichnung: »das ist ein Charakter!« - ja! wenn er grobe Konsequenz zeigt, wenn die Konsequenz auch dem stumpfen Auge einleuchtet! Aber sobald ein feinerer und tieferer Geist waltet und auf seine höhere Weise folgerichtig ist, leugnen die Zuschauer das Vorhandensein des Charakters. Deshalb spielen verschlagene Staatsmänner ihre Komödie gewöhnlich hinter einem Deckmantel der groben Konsequenz."
Just for the heck of it, a lovely short clip from a David Bowie radio appearance. In addition to being a superstar musician, he also can really shine in interviews as well.
That version of "Five Years" is pretty good refutation of the idea that Bowie's emotionally inaccessible. As is, I think, Space Oddity.
(c) Maybe a cool bar that plays Zep is actually cooler than a cool bar that plays relentlessly and, one wishes one didn't have to say it so explicitly, obviously "cool" music
An immensely plausible premise, only undercut by the fact that the bar segued from Zeppelin into Credence, and thence to the Killers and thence to Peter Bjorn and John.
As we all know these days, actual punk rock musicians occasionally had musical opinions that would have gotten them exiled to Siberia if they were anyone else
They kept them quiet.
Elvis Costello (borderline punk rock, I suppose in his youth) is the son of a big band swing trumpeter and knows a lot about music his early fans wouldn't have touched. He only owned up to his real name after he was rich.
||
Crap. 35 out of 40 attorneys in an office at one of the agencies I coordinate with, including everyone I interact with, just got laid off. (A) that sucks for them, (B) I don't understand how they're going to function at all.
|>
I don't understand how they're going to function at all.
Steroids?
Um, automation?
114. I've seen public bodies firing their legal departments over here. The model is that they buy in expertise ad hoc when needed and have a couple of senior lawyers on staff for QA.
Not unrelated to 111(b), IIUC, is that even the coarse-grained tabloid image of punk includes not just a pro-authenticity moment ("anti-disco") but an anti-authenticity pro-irony one ("anti-hippy"), for certain values of "authenticity", "irony", "disco" and "hippy".
I watched some old zep concerts for the first time recently, and I thought, god I can't believe he's wearing that ridiculous vest and tossing his curls about like a fucking gaylord, and then 10 seconds later I thought, who cares what he's wearing, I really want to fuck robert plant.
The Earls Court one? Almost induced the same reaction in me.
116: The thing is, I'm their outside litigator -- they're not doing their own litigation now. What these guys do (from my perspective, they do other things too I don't know about) is understand their records and locate and explain them for me. Non-lawyers could do everything I need them to, if they were as knowledgeable as the lawyers I'm dealing with, but I don't know how they're going to do it without the bodies.
117. "Yer too old an' yer hair's too long!" Was that slogan current in the US too?
ajay's 4 is wrong, BTW. "Honor'd in the breach" meaning it's more honorable to break than observe a custom is what Hamlet meant in context. It's not what the phrase now means; subsequent usage is what determines that. (And actually, the popular reversal of the Bard's original meaning arguably adds a further level of cleverness to the original poetry, which is rare with "mistakes" like this.) So, shine on alameida, you crazy diamond.
98: I was explaining VR (in the mid-90s) to a quilting group of nurses, all of them also mothers, and suggested "flying, or point your finger at something and it blows up." All of them sttrted pointing at inanimate objects & making pfft! Whoomp! Noises. They enjoyed the idea.
re: 112
John Lydon's musical taste, for example, was pretty eclectic, even then.
Lydon was one of the people I was specifically thinking of, even.
I was a big David Bowie fan. I foolishly saw him 3 times on that let's dance tour. That was a little excessive.
102: This is really why I have trouble with talking or thinking about music -- about two sentences into any conversation, people start saying things I don't understand at all. Bowie's supposed to be inaccessible? That would not have occurred to me.
This is such a privileged rule that it exceeds even my usual quota of privileged assholishness. You can bitch about it but I know already, obviously. I'm taking one for the asshole team. You're welcome, Halford.
I forgot to thank alameida for drawing away some of the hostile fire, because I was feeling vulnerable after all the hating on waxed cotton jackets in the other thread.
re: 127
The waxed jacket thing doesn't apply to you colonials anyway. We expect youse to be vulgar.
Or immune to our class stereotypes.
I have a waxed cotton jacket, but it doesn't look like the kind everybody was talking about, so I was sanguine.
I went through a brief phase where I wanted to make amends for a dorky childhood (well, childhood is probably putting it weakly) and the resulting ENORMOUS GAPS in musical literacy so I downloaded Pitchfork's* lists of best albums of the 70s and I guess 80s.
This would have been an incredibly dorky way of digging out of dorkdom but anyway the first thing I found for cheap at a used record store (that one on 53rd in Hyde Park) was Ziggy Stardust and that's pretty much where the project ended because I realized my tastes in music aren't that malleable and it was going to be a drag listening to the point of familiarity to things I really wasn't into.
*I'm probably supposed to think they're so three minutes ago but I hadn't even heard of them until exactly the time that this happened.
Yeah, I don't think the class stereotypes expressed by consumer goods comes across the Atlantic in any sort of recognizable form. Wasn't there something that came up not too long ago about the significance of green suits, or something else similarly weird?
I vaguely remember a picture of Iman wearing a Barbour jacket or equivalent. Not Bowie though.
126 -- Musically not nearly as anchored in either a pop or a Jes Grew tradition (a selling point to many). Visually/personally going a direction not really part of a lot of people's lives. In a society where which guy you'd like to have a beer with is a relevant consideration for picking a president, it's not exactly mysterious that a great many folks would find the motivations of Ziggy Stardust inaccessible.
re: 131
Heh, I still do things like that. Read about or hear an album, or artist, or even an entire genre I don't know. Go to some site or other, get a list, and then just start churning through it on spotify or elsewhere. It's great.
ttaM, yeah, it's not a bad approach, but in this case it wasn't going to work. I'm currently listing my way to greater film literacy, though. Roger Ebert's list, because I like him. I seem to be more open to films I would never have chosen on my own. Last night I started The Searchers and though I have little native interest in Westerns, it's totally gripping so far.
114 -- Budget shenanigans? I suppose there's no penalty for any agency to offload work to your outfit.
Or, if it doesn't work out, they could hire 35 people with new JDs as paralegals. Maybe 5 lawyers laid off by big firms, and 30 new JDs, all as paralegals, so there'll be someone who knows something.
110: I wouldn't want to push the idea too far - it's an inherently slippery subject-matter and all, not to mention the gusty bus - but songs like "Five Years" (Earth is to die in five years) and "Space Oddity" (guy in space is alienated) are, yes, emotionally-involving, but in the way in which something like Battlestar Galactica might be, where you play straight a scenario that's ultimately fantastic, or is at least extremely singular. And that seems to me different to an album like, say, "Berlin", which is about stuff that it's easier to genuinely care about.
137: I don't think they can really offload work to me, much. They can make my life more difficult by not being available to support the litigation I'm doing for them, but I just don't have access to do the things they're doing all day.
A whole bunch of paralegals is a possibility, but boy, it's going to be weird over there. And of course it's upsetting because I know these guys (or at least some of them).
Tweet just now from John Perry Barlow: Saw Radiohead at Roseland last night. Transcendent. But they had to transcend the loudest, most disrespectful crowd ever.
Phooey on him. It's about the audience.
I can't understand that you'd want to be a rockstar's wife. It has to be very boring sitting around all day while he practices with his mates. And that's when he's sober. The actual reality behind Clapton's paean to his wife hauling his drunken ass home must have been horrible.
138 -- oh, I know what you mean.
if it doesn't work out, they could hire 35 people with new JDs as paralegals
Try as I might, I just can't shake my initial belief, formed at the age of about 12 or so, that "paralegal" is to "lawyer" as "paratrooper" is to "soldier". Which would, of course, be terrific.
138: Yeah, I'm not claiming that you're confusing, it's just that music conversations instantly get to a place where I'm confused. I can also never quite figure out what genre anything I like fits into -- not that there's anything specially confusing about the stuff I like, just that I get puzzled about it very easily. Go on about your conversation, and I'll just read along and fail to understand.
141: The actual reality behind Clapton's paean to his wife hauling his drunken ass home must have been horrible.
I have never understood why that's a romantic song other than that no one listens to lyrics. (I suppose there's something along the lines of "You love me despite the fact that I objectively suck", but that's not the sort of sappy romance it gets played for.)
There's an audience for 'I'm better than he deserves.'
I think, though, that a lot of people don't pay very close attention to lyrics. Jokes about which were overdone long before Shatner's take on it.
Oh, come on. "Every time I looked over at you, I was struck by your beauty, all night long, persistently" is a romantic message.
I think, though, that a lot of people don't pay very close attention to lyrics
For example, this story.
For example, this story.
Or this one.
146: "And it inspired me to get drunk enough that you had to put me to bed." Not romantic.
Women are so picky about romance.
And butter, apparently.
Can somebody else make the obvious Brando joke here?
Come on, what do a few urine-soaked sheets matter as long as I get to lie between them with you?
151: I wish this comment hadn't reminded me of Last Tango in Paris.
OK, one last thought, then I really have to do some work. It seems to me that one engages in passive leisure activities either to Be Entertained or to Be Moved, in kind of a Dyonysian mysteries sense. Standard for the former is quite low, for me anyway. I can watch nearly any movie, and could probably get through an album from anyone not to aggressive. Moved, though, requires a suspension of disbelief. One barrier to which, ime, is Trying Too Hard, either on my part or on the part of the entertainer. Sappy Olympic stories connect for some of us sometimes, or they wouldn't keep doing it. Maybe 1 in 10 gets to me, or maybe it's 1 in 20, and I consider myself overly susceptible to sentiment.
I've never imagined myself being Moved by David Bowie. No problem seeing that other people are: I mean people like licorice, for god's sake.
I saw Hall & Oates in Winterland. It wasn't my idea. I was Entertained, I guess, and sometimes amused. Not Moved, though, (not that I expected to be) and left with a distinct feeling that a temple had been defiled.
OK, back to the 21st century . . .
"And it inspired me to get drunk enough that you had to put me to bed." Not romantic.
Not to me, either. But to a lot of people "I do too much for this guy and the pay-off is that I hope he keeps me on this feminine pedestal" and yes, he is. What's not romantic about being a faceless martyr in high heels?
157 surprised me, because I would say that the Grateful Dead (Carp is a fan) is one of the least emotionally "moving" bands I know of -- allusive and distant lyrics and instrumental noodling.
And I actually like the Dead quite a bit (now, and in certain moods, though I couldn't handle them for years).
What's not romantic about being a faceless martyr in high heels
Saint Catherine of Alexandria Barbie. Hott.
Is any coincidence that the most artificial musician of his era turned to the artificial world of derivatives to make money?
158: Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astair did but backwards and without a face and on a cross, isn't that how the saying goes?
Bowie made a killing on those.
I have never understood why that's a romantic song other than that no one listens to lyrics.
Ditto for "Just the Way You Are." "You always have my unspoken passion / Although I might not seem to care"?! Greaaat.
163: Never use the men's room after Ginger Rogers.
OT: Oh boy! New khaki pants!
Christ, I'm boring.
Is any coincidence that the most artificial musician of his era turned to the artificial world of derivatives to make money?
According to wikipedia, those aren't derivatives.
165: Probably better than "Private Eyes" (by Hall and Oates, I think).
"And it inspired me to get drunk enough that you had to put me to bed." Not romantic.
Nobody's perfect.
He has some great stuff, but I would not invest in the lowest tranche.
Clapton is an odd case. I personally can't see why he isn't written off as a racist, sexist shitheel, but I've met people who've encountered him, usually in professional or semi-professional contexts, who are completely won over and go on about what a nice guy he is. I can only conclude that he's a racist, sexist shitheel who's exceptionally generous professionally to the little guys in a trade where that isn't often the case.
Since he hasn't had a chance to work his magic on me, I'm still on team fuck him. (While recognising that he can in fact play very well.)
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Can this motherfucking motherfucker finally be unlinked from the motherfucking front page of the motherfucking blog?
[h/t Thers]
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I never paid attention to Bowie's singing skills until I saw him insulting Ricky Gervais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv6mEv_rDdE
Also: Pushing Ahead of the Dame, a blog analyzing the entire Bowie catalogue one song at at time:
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/
I never paid attention to Bowie's singing skills until I saw him insulting Ricky Gervais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv6mEv_rDdE
Also: Pushing Ahead of the Dame, a blog analyzing the entire Bowie catalogue one song at at time:
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/
173: Christ, what an asshole. I can't believe I'm one Facebook degree away from him.
I can't believe I'm one Facebook degree away from him.
I can't believe I used to read him regularly -- eagerly, even -- in the immediate post-9/11 era. I think I even defended him once or twice in another online forum from the charge that he was just another conservative hack.
According to wikipedia, those aren't derivatives.
They're not, themselves. But I'd be somewhat surprised if there weren't derivatives in the structure somewhere. Pretty much all securitisations have embedded derivatives. In this case probably a currency swap and maybe an interest rate swap. Bowie bonds were just before my time, so I can't recall the structure well.
I'm surprised Bowie Bond-esque securities aren't commoner -- I'd think you could sell them above the investment value to fans.
I'd say that Insta post clearly overcomes the CHANGEBAD presumption that otherwise applies to the front page.
But yay to (the action referred to in) 182.
I must be seeing a cached version?
HEY! I know a blog that would fit in, alphabetically, perfectly to the soon-to-be vacated slot.
Have you clicked on the link in the blogroll? I was puzzled at first.
I Can Haz Cheezburger isn't really a blog.
Oh, look at that. I have students right now so I can't listen.
re: 176
Yeah. I read somewhere that Wild is the Wind [from Station to Station] is a single take. With the producer or engineer amazed that despite being drugged out of his head for Station to Station, he was basically note perfect, all of the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbpMpRq6DV4&ob=av2e
or here if youtube regional fuckery stops it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMICp0gwZic
182: Strikes a nice balance between respect for history and appropriate revisionism.
Next up: A redesign of the $20 bill to offer a more complete portrayal of Andrew Jackson.
Was young Nosflow even alive when McEnroe uttered those words?
re: 172
Yeah, I've a strong dislike for him and his music. Partly because of the racist/sexist shithead stuff, but also because I think he's almost uniquely guilty of coasting for decades on very little. Most of the other 60s 'legends' got crap, quite quickly, but Clapton got crap quicker than most, and was never all that in the first place -- decent blues-rock guitarist, epic and very influential tone on basically one record (Beano). But, I also know, very vaguely [3rd hand really], of people who've worked with him and had nice things to say.
How long have those blogs had those mouseovers? I like it.
They've been there since whenever the blog went on the blogroll, with some edits.
I'm generally 100% on board w/194. I know well someone who's worked with Clapton very closely, recently, and AFAIK he's a nice enough guy to people he's working with but not amazing (he's not an affirmative asshole to work with or crazy, but, surprise surprise, few very successful musicians are).
He comes across as quite a dick in the new George Harrison doc.
196: Well, sure, having mouseovers like "Yale Law Prof" or "At the Washington Monthly" isn't that interesting. The funny part is the ones like "Can Bloggers Have Accents?" or "Used to be funny".
The investor information for Entertainment 720 (aka Apo's workplace) is pretty awesome.
46
OT: CGI blood is many years from being as convincing as the corn-syrup-and-food-coloring stuff, producers of The Wizards of Waverly Place Ninja Assassin.
You know what's really unconvincing? All the bloodless carnage out there. This comment reminded me of this week's episode of Castle, in which the murder victim's hand got cut off shortly before he was chopped in half (it was a very good sword, apparently) with apparently no blood. When you see the crime scene the following morning, there's a pool of blood or corn syrup or whatever, but in the actual hand-chopping-and-bisecting scene there's not a drop.
It's probably a way to skirt some ratings violence ratings threshold or something. I noticed the same thing watching superhero movies, in which nobody but the hero ever bleeds, and it kind of fits in some cases but it really doesn't in others.
Somewhere I read that the most recent Die Harderer edited out all the blood for the theatrical release so it could get the PG-13, but you get blood and profanity on one of the dvd releases.
201: those scenes made me cry, I was laughing so hard.
I think that Alameida and Scott Eric Kaufman shoulkd collaporate to write a Gothic novel made up entirely of insane true stories from their lives loosely stitched together with fictitious sane episodes.
I think that Alameida and Scott Eric Kaufman shoulkd collaporate to write a Gothic novel made up entirely of insane true stories from their lives loosely stitched together with fictitious sane episodes.
It could be structured like Possession, with those parts told in parallel with insane true stories from the life of the bookish historian/narrator, AWB.
160 -- You had to be there. In proper state. But, sure, the magic doesn't work on everyone.
Emerson!
Also 206 and 209 need to happen.
Also also, on the old subject of harmful self-help proverbs, I just saw this on my FB feed.
People to weak to follow their dreams will always find a way to discourage yours
Let me be the first to say, "Emerson!"
My FB feed had a notice that traditional Chinese whatever says that October, 2011 has five Mondays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays and that this only happens every 800 years or so.
Also, Emerson.
That message goes around every five months... because a month with five Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays happens every five months too. (Maybe not that exactly, but pretty close.) I don't understand people.
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Unrelated to anything: www.shitmykidsruined.com
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217: Right, because you don't understand the wisdom of the traditional Chinese scholars who were so advanced they knew which was the month to get rich in using a calendar that did not even exist until after they were dead.
Semi-on topic, my kid ruined my Blackberry by throwing it into a bathtub, so I got an Iphone, and it's been all Apple products since.
On topic in another thread, I guess.
You probably painted it to look like a rubber duck or something. Your kid was framed so you could get a new phone.
Ditto for "Just the Way You Are." "You always have my unspoken passion / Although I might not seem to care"?! Greaaat.
Oh, that one drives me mad.
"Don't go changing" - what, ever??? What sort of controlling arsehole are you?
"I don't want clever conversation" - actually, I do.
Ok, I went down to Occupy Wall Street. More accurately, I was walking down there and got swept into the ostensibly silent but not entirely silent march from there to 1 Police Plaza, protesting police treatment of demonstrators over the weekend. (At one point a chant of "NYPD Go to Hell" broke out and I thought "oh, great, that's productive.")
Big crowd I guess. I'm bad at gauging these things. Overall good vibe, some weirdos, some way off message signs. It still doesn't exactly feel like there is a cohesive message, OTOH. I'll be curious to see where this goes.
224:
You seemed low-maintenance
When I met you.
I didn't have to keep guard.
Mmm hmmm mmm mmm mmm
But now I'm worried
You want something of me!
I loved you when it wasn't hard.
As novels go, Possession isn't that bad. I vaguely recall it not suffering from the movie's glaring, blaring imbalance of sympathy between the contemporary and Victorian stories (i.e., the parts of the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow Brit-ing it up weren't all that great), notwithstanding Byatt's fairly rank contempt for academics.
Let me be the first to say, "Emerson!"
157: It seems to me that one engages in passive leisure activities either to Be Entertained or to Be Moved
This is interesting; off the top of my head, I'd add to Be Intrigued. That is, something like King Crimson -- at least in the Discipline period, say -- doesn't really either entertain me (unless you really stretch the sense of that word) or move me, but intrigues. Fascinating! All sorts of other music fits here as well: certain 12-string and spanish guitarists. One might also in some sense be entertained and/or moved, but that doesn't really capture the attraction.
A Tom Waits concert I went to fits that bill.
Get that goddamn novel written, guys. The other stuff id of no importance.
98: NO FUCKING SHIT!
also, emerson!
Had a weird rock star moment yesterday at JFK. After check in I go out for a smoke, run into a bunch of middle aged Poles with punk haircuts, guitar cases, etc. One is wearing a Kult t-shirt. And then the fricking lead singer of Kult walks out and he and his buddies are happily chatting away over which bars they'll hit during their stay. All anonymously, because of course nobody in the US can recognize Kazik, who is instantly recognizable in Poland as arguably Poland's biggest rock star of the past thirty years. I thought of saying something, but chickened out.
"He broke the gentle hearts of many young virgins."
David Bowie is a rubber peacock angelic whore, he services our every kink and fantasy. He's our King Volcano, our Master Zip. He's known to lay us, one and all.
234: Aw! You totally ought to have said something! I bet he would have been into being recognized in NYC.
35: he was in the man who fell to earth!
I was extremely gratified once while driving from Albuquerque to Santa Fe the back way to come across and recognize the slag pile that Bowie/Newton slides down at the beginning of the film. That was definitely some wizard cocksucker casting. However, Roeg says he considered Michael Crichton for the role! (For his height which we have discussed here.)
The movies always treat aliens as little green men. I imagine if aliens came down to Earth, they'd actually be quite tall; people seem to get everything right about extraterrestrials but the size! At that very moment, this dashing man walked over who seemed to be seven feet tall. That was Michael Crichton. I think we even discussed the idea of him playing Mr. Newton for a while after that first meeting. [Pause] Obviously, we went another way.
98: seriously, ffs, if I had that piece of equipiment apparently so necessary to the activity of rock criticism, aka the penis, is it possible you would have done me the favor of assuming I was making a bad joke rather then a fucking idiot? or perhaps remembered the rules about standpipe's blog, and posting thereon?
Rockism rears its ugly mandatory head.
I was going to ask yesterday whether women had power fantasies.
are you people trying to drive me nuts. AIN'T I A HUMAN/??/!1!!
if you are a sexist prick, do it not bleed?
sorry to pile on, lw, I'm just tetchy.
standpipe's blog
looked but couldn't find it.
Maybe that power question belonged in the gun conversation where I got curious; no harm no foul I hope.
OF COURSE WOMEN HAVE POWER FANTASIES. NEWS FLASH: WOMEN ARE ACTUALLY A KIND OF HUMAN.
re: standpipe's blog, RTFA. at length. carefully. all of them. it will keep you busy and then you won't wonder about things that are TAUTOLOGICALLY SELF-EVIDENT IF YOU JUST SUBSTITUTE "HUMAN" FOR "WOMEN."
again, sorry, dude, no particular animus, but you're in the line of fire. people be pissing me off getting mowed down right and left. I'm firing indiscriminately.
next man IRL says some sexist bullshit to me I'm going to haul off and hit the motherfucker. I don't fucking give a shit.
Oh man these chicks are CRAZY. They're like some kind of overly emotional non-human, but also smell real nice.
Found a pic from the LZ show I went to. Kind of amazed I got the t shirt right.
Hey, speaking of Zeppelin, I just saw Robert Plant & the Band of Joy. They did a bunch of Zep songs. Plant's higher register might be gone these days, but he's still got a hell of a voice.
249: sweeeeet. so jealous.
247: no, that's why I'm wearing my ass-enchancing white jeans. also, ha fucking ha.
hilariously I got hit on my robert plant in the 90s when I worked in rockfeller center. me: buzz cut about 1/2 inch, buddy holly glasses, shapeless a-line dress in black (short, admittedly), and combat boots. I thought this would deter catcalling/getting hit on every fucking second of every day. MASSIVE FAIL. he was wearing this ludicrous late 80s leather jacket that was a patchwork of different kinds of leather and snakeskin, and still had a glorious mane of blond curls. in retrospect I totally should have fucked him. I erred there.
This one is better of course: http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/van-morrison/video/listen-to-the-lion_47985585.html
I'm firing indiscriminately.
You will deploy your ordnance to the ground?
SWM, mid-30s, looking for childless widow or divorcee for fun/companionship. Loves trees/birds (but not good at filling the feeders). Religious but not a fanatic about it. Definitely do *not* want children.
That would be a great pseud for regular use.
Speaking of how bitches be crazy, we agreed to take in two more foster children so the kindergartener girl wouldn't have to change schools. We now have kids who are five, four, and three and this was probably the financially stupidest time to increase our spending, but apparently that wasn't enough to stop us.
They're cute and sweet and kind, these two, and Mara's mostly handling it well. I have no idea how long they'll be staying but I'd guess at least a couple of months. This is going to be hard. I never really wanted little littles, but apparently I'm decent at that kind of parenting. They like us, anyway.
Wow Thorn that is incredibly great and generous and you must be exhausted. I can't imagine just bringing two more small kids into the house.
114
Crap. 35 out of 40 attorneys in an office at one of the agencies I coordinate with, including everyone I interact with, just got laid off. (A) that sucks for them, (B) I don't understand how they're going to function at all.
This is because their union just voted down their contract, right? Unions often prefer layoffs to wage cuts but this seems like poor public policy and I don't see why it should be up to them.
|| Q for the Unfogged Bar: It's Oct 1, effective date for various legislation passed earlier this year. Including one aimed at folks here in the Zoo. In 2006, voters in our county passed an initiative directing law enforcement to give marijuana crimes the lowest enforcement priority. At the request of our county attorney, a rural legislator from the Far East sponsored a bill to deprive county voters of the right to set law enforcement priorities. Republicans, always eager to punish the Goddamn hippies, went for it. (As if any of them ever believed in that small government crap anyway). So it's in effect, and the county attorney has told the sheriff and the highway patrol to disregard the initiative. Not so fast says a member of our city council -- whose day job is lobbyist for NORML: she claim that the new law only applies prospectively, not to initiatives passed before it was enacted. She predicts litigation. I'm not sure who would have standing. Any ideas?|>
Maybe a sherriff's deputy or local prosecutor who claims that he's spending time that he wouldn't have needs to on pot crimes. Or a sympathetic stoner busted under the new priorities. Also, does Montana standing track federal (not at all the case here; in a CA court, tons of people could bring that case).
262
... So it's in effect, and the county attorney has told the sheriff and the highway patrol to disregard the initiative. ...
Absent the initiative who would ordinarily establish enforcement priorities? Did the initiative have any practical effect?
Assume it's like federal. Assume also we're hoping for a plaintiff who can afford a local lawyer who worked on a recent US Supreme Court case on retroactivity.
A crime victim of a non-pot-related crime, injured by the lower priority placed on what happened to them? I'm having a little trouble making this concrete, but maybe the local Chamber of Commerce, or some group of local businesses, would be able to plead that they were injured because the police weren't preventing shoplifting.
Hey, as long as we're talking law, can anyone give me an educated guess on something? I have a hypothesis that the last few years have seen a significant uptick in proposed state laws with a private right of action.
Most of these (at least the ones I'm thinking of) haven't passed. They're stuff like immigration bills that give people the right to sue if they think an employer is hiring unauthorized workers, or state residents the right to sue if they think local police aren't enforcing immigration laws.
My totally uneducated non-lawyer take is that laws like these are just insane, creating as they do a basically wide-open path for private citizens to file endless parade of lawsuits. Even if most of the cases wouldn't be strong, the simple fact of filing them would clog up the court system and cause the companies (or the police departments, or whomever) to have to spend time and money defending against them.
My further hypothesis is that the (mostly) Republicans who propose these laws *know* that, and the reason they're willing to put forth bills with private rights of action is that either a) they're fairly confident the bills will never pass, or b) they're maliciously uncaring of the consequences.
My questions:
- Am I right that there's been an increase?
- If not, what are some of the existing laws that have a private right of action, and do they result in a slew of filings?
(I'm not talking about qui tam suits)
Inquiring minds would like to know....
Interesting question, but I've got no idea about an uptick.
Do most states have anything equivalent to Vexatious Litigation provisions? Because this would seem to be a circumstance where they might apply.
- Am I right that there's been an increase?
- If not, what are some of the existing laws that have a private right of action, and do they result in a slew of filings?
(I'm not talking about qui tam suits)
Inquiring minds would like to know....
1) No. Nor is this a Republican thing. Mostly, Republicans try to limit private right of actions provisions, because of (2) below.
2) Probably the most prominent private right of action is SEC rule 10b-5, which the Supreme Court has interpreted to give a private right of action to enforce some of the securities laws, especially the ones having to do with fraud. There are a number of others in the business law context. Absent that private right of action under these statutes, it's way more difficult for private investors whose money is stolen to sue large corporations. If you think that's a good thing, well there are arguments, but they are basically generic conservative pro-business arguments.
Other private rights of action are found in the environmental laws. Absent those rights, NRDC or the Sierra Club or whatever couldn't bring cases. And you'd be stuck with having the government enforcing the environmental laws.
3) Republicans have been trying to limit private rights of action for years, using "clogging up the courts" arguments that are essentially bullshit. They do this because the primary use of private rights of action is to enforce laws against deep-pocket defendants (i.e., corporations) that the state and federal governments are unwilling to enforce.
Eh, that was terribly written, but whatevs. (3) is the main point. Private rights of action may suck in the immigration context, but get rid of them in other contexts and you're pretty much helping to kill enforcement of the consumer, investor, and environmental protection laws.
268
Cry me a river. The left has long loved private rights of action. See here for example. Now you are concerned?
Jarek Molski, 38, is a bit of a legend in legal circles. Disabled in a 1985 motorcycle accident that left him a paraplegic, he has filed 400 lawsuits against businesses under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), alleging access violations. He was dubbed a "hit-and-run plaintiff" in 2004 by a federal judge and barred from filing any more lawsuits. ...
Oh, right, how did I forget the ADA. Kill private rights of action and you kill enforcement of the ADA, which puts you firmly in Shearer-land.
Also, a fair number of labor laws.
In the general case, I'm not sure setting law enforcement priorities by referenda is a good idea.
Show of hands: who here thinks we should give Moby a noogie?
You can't do that. I'm in a movie theater.
OT: I rerally don't want to stereotype but this boy is just non-stop stereotypical boy, though I don't think even hyperactive. In 48 hours, he's knocked over five different cups and fallen off multiple chairs, none of which seems to bother him.
Yeah. We are using cups with lids until he gets to college.
For a while Joey did this thing where he'd be sitting at the table eating, and then he'd have to get up and run a circle around his chair, just to burn off the extra energy.
These days he just has spontaneous bouts of Kung-Fu, which can cause problems if anyone or anything is near him.
The ancient wisdom of Asia has been a huge pain in the ass for me also.
Chris Y -
"Elvis Costello (borderline punk rock, I suppose in his youth) is the son of a big band swing trumpeter and knows a lot about music his early fans wouldn't have touched"
No, his father was a big-band crooner - Ross McManus. I knew this in 1976, so it wasn't much of a secret. He did have knowledge of decent music that he must have heard before puberty. And indecent music "Mighty Like A Rose" is a clue here.
270: Thanks, that's very helpful. Your answer made me realize that I was unconsciously equating "private" with "individual," but of course that's nonsensical.
I would imagine that nuisance lawsuits are an issue in any area of the law, but I do wonder whether the current heightened degree of venom on immigration issues would make that area especially prone to abuse.
I'm trying to think about other cases where private individuals have the right to sue police departments to make them prioritize the enforcement of a certain law. The civil rights examples I can think of off the top of my head are ones where advocates pressed the federal government to intervene where the state or locality had failed to act, but those advocates weren't actually suing anyone. Hm.
I don't think we had any uptick in individual/private rights of action.
I don't see the problem with letting the people pick law enforcement priorities. So long as they're not violating equal protection or due process ofindividuals. I mean, we'd let the legislature do it, right? What is the reason for having an irrevocable delegation of some kind to elected officials?
Yeah, "deprioritizing" is weaksauce, but conceptually the same category of action, I'd say, as making a felony into a misdemeanor.
I've never understood priority-setting legislation. Who is it supposed to bind? And the question of how to enforce it seems like it applies even in the absence of the contrary no-you-don't legislation. Can't a random LEO always claim that their choice to enforce the nominally lowest-priority law was appropriate at the time, that there was no other pending work to do at that moment?
I have no problem letting people legislate, for example by legalizing pot (which I realize a local government can't do). I have no problem with letting people elect executive officials based on whatever. An ad hoc referenda process seems less effective than either of these and much more likely to result in lawsuits than actually settling an issue.
Variously pwned, but that's because I have many priorities.
Oddly, CSPAN radio has been replaying a Supreme Court case in which the issue at hand was whether hospitals have the right to sue a state for failure to reimburse Medicare claims at an adequate rate: the issue as I understood it had to do with just this sort of private right of action.
Sorry I don't remember just what case this was; there was something central to do with the Bourne (sp) amendment, apparently occurring in 1980/81. I heard just 25 minutes of the CSPAN broadcast and was piecing this together. I bet I could google it.
At any rate, apparently the currently sitting Supreme Court will be hearing a case very much related to this in its upcoming session. I'm afraid I caught that information in fleeting manner as well.
The upcoming one is Douglas v. Independent Living Center; I'm not sure what the previous one was.
It looks like it was this: Supreme Court Historic Oral Argument: "Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder and Others, Petitioners V. the Virginia Hospital Association, Respondent" (1990)
It was somewhat interesting, what of it I could gather in the short listening time: the state seemed to have put in place reimbursement policies against which private parties (in this case the hospitals) had no recourse for complaint or review or administrative reconsideration whatsoever. It appeared that the situation as it stood -- according to the statute apparently to blame for all this -- meant that private parties just had to accept that a suitable degree of due consideration and diligence had been done by the state, and there was no means for parties to challenge that.
There are about a zillion Supreme Court cases on private rights of action. The old timey rule used to be that when Congress passed a statute, courts more or less assumed that people had the right to enforce it. Then, since about 1975, faced with businesses angry about citizen suits, the more conservative Supreme Courts have reversed that rule. So now Congress needs to speak very clearly when it wants a private right of action, and the Supreme Court is generally very hostile to the idea that private citizens can enforce the law.
But many older statutes and rules (like 10b-5, the primary basis for private securities lawsuits) were already found to have implied private rights of action, and those decisions are still on the books.
*The foregoing is chock full o'generalizations, but I think broadly accurate.
290 -- wait, Jesus Christ. Parsimon is spending her time listening to old Supreme Court oral arguments from 1980 on CSPAN???
Where else can you listen to old Supreme Court oral arguments from 1980?
In most private rights of action, you sue the violator of the law directly, not the gov't for failing to exercise prosecutorial discretion in the way you'd like. Or you sue the gov't agency for making a rule that violates a statute, or something. In the immigration context I don't see how it would get you further than, oh, calling the border patrol or ICE on someone. Isn't that what the minutemen actually do?
296 -- I thought the idea was that you could sue, say, a business that hires illegal aliens to require the business to stop hiring them.
Standing would be an issue I guess.
Parsimon, I am seriously worried about you. It is Saturday Night! Do not listen to old Supreme Court arguments. Do not learn about the Boren Amendment.
292: It's during my drive home on Saturdays after work. The radio gives me a choice between the Prairie Home Companion and CSPAN radio's Sat. evening replaying of historic Supreme Court oral arguments. I go back and forth.
I'm trying to learn things now and then, Halford.
The radio gives me a choice between the Prairie Home Companion and CSPAN radio's Sat. evening replaying of historic Supreme Court oral arguments.
Sweet Jesus. It's like choosing between Hitler and Stalin. I didn't even know there was a CSPAN Radio. Don't you get 94.5 the Classic Rock Fox or something where you are?
Dude, I am not actively listening to it now, for god's sake. I googled the damn bourne amendment because I was afraid that if I didn't, someone would send me a "Let me google that for you" link, which would be a drag. Sure enough, it's Boren, not Bourne. So there you go.
Don't apologize for learning shit. Learning shit is like buying a lottery ticket. There is a small chance it might pay off in a big way.
The Boren Trilogy is all about a former health industry operative trying to come to terms with having been an expert in rescission earlier in life.
And a much bigger chance you'll be out $5, watching balls spin on TV while slowly realizing you're a loser.
See. Now I learned something about past life regression and health insurance and I can, as an informed voter, help select public policy on the issue.
Radio pickings are pretty sparse early Saturday evening. There's the college hipster station, which is okay at times but often repetitive in its playlist and narrated by 19-year-olds. There's the station that favors a lot of "hey, my brother, where's sister [so-and-so], she comin' on board soon, yeah, meanwhile, a shout-out to all you with your groove comin' on" -- I listen to that sometimes, but it's thin on the actual music. And there's classical. I'm not much for the upper ends of the dial.
I do hope that halford didn't just call me a loser.
Because now you're going to have to cut him!
No, no. You're fine. I think maybe you should get an Ipod for use in the car, though.
Where else can you listen to old Supreme Court oral arguments from 1980?
Oyez! I love Oyez.
296-7: I haven't read the darned bills in a bit, so they're not fresh in my mind. IIRC, one allows individuals to sue their local police force if said police force is insufficiently aggressive in their enforcement of immigration laws, and the other allows individuals to sue companies that they suspect of employing unauthorized immigrants.
...
OK, I went back and looked up one of them. Here's the language:
(7) A person may challenge in court any official or agency of the Commonwealth or any political subdivision that adopts or implements a policy limiting or restricting enforcement of Federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by Federal law. If there is a judicial finding that an official or agency of the Commonwealth or any political subdivision has violated this section, the court may order any of the following:
(i) That the person who brought the action recover court costs and attorney fees.
(ii) That the official or agency of the Commonwealth or any political subdivision pay a civil penalty of not less than $1,000 and not more than $5,000 to the Commonwealth for each day beyond the seventh day that the policy remains in effect after service of notice on the agency of the filing of an action under this paragraph.
Reading between the lines, it's creating an explicit invitation for anyone who believes that local police are not aggressive enough in arresting or criminally charging people who may be unlawfully present in the US.
It's not likely to pass in this form, but it's got remarkable traction as these things go.
Just watched Black Robe. Uplifting stuff.
So wait, If I sue some restaurant employing illegals, they have to give me money? That sounds like pretty easy money.
311 before reading 310. So the idea is to have the local gov't give money to whiny busybodies.
CSPAN radio is pretty good. Way better than the TV.
Not as good as watching Sandrine Holt.
Cutting isn't my style, quite, but I don't rule it out.
On the iPod for the car, well, I do have CDs and such, but honestly? I don't mind hearing 25 minutes of a Supreme Court case now and then. Keeps me on my toes. Listening to my music just puts me back in my own head, and that's not always what I want.
If I'd listened to Jeff Beck, I'd never have heard of the Boren Amendment or had any touchstone for the very concept of private rights of action. Sometimes A Prairie Home Companion makes me laugh out loud (not nearly as often as I'd like).
Black Robe? Is that the one with the French priest staggering around in the snow as various gory things happen? Yeah, I didn't really like it.
311.2: No, that's this bill:
1) An enforcement action shall be initiated by means of a written, signed complaint to the secretary [of state]'s office submitted by any government entity, business entity or resident. A valid complaint shall include an allegation which describes the alleged violator as well as the actions constituting the violation and the date and location where the actions occurred.
(2) A complaint which alleges a violation on the basis of national origin, ethnicity or race shall be deemed invalid and shall not be enforced. [Ed.: Phew!]
(3) Upon receipt of a valid complaint, the secretary shall, within three business days, request information from the business entity which is the subject of the complaint, which may include any of the following:
(i) Copies of any information provided to a government entity under subsection (b), (c) or (d)
(ii) Identity information concerning any employees alleged to be unauthorized aliens.
(iii) Verification of the work authorization of aliens provided to the employer through the E-verify Program.
(4) The secretary shall submit identity data required by the Federal Government to verify, pursuant to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546), the immigration status and work authorization of employees alleged to be unauthorized aliens and shall provide the employer with written confirmation of that verification.
(5) The secretary shall order all government entities to suspend the registration of any business entity that fails to correct a violation of this act.
(6) The correction of a violation with respect to the employment of an unauthorized alien shall include any of the following actions:
(i) The employer terminates the unauthorized alien's employment.
(ii) The employer, after acquiring additional information from the employee, requests a secondary or additional verification by the Federal Government of the employee's authorization under the procedures of the E- verify Program. While this verification is pending, any enforcement action shall be tolled.
(iii) The employer attempts to terminate the unlawful worker's employment and the termination is challenged in a court of this Commonwealth. While the employer pursues the termination of the unauthorized alien's employment in such forum, any enforcement action shall be tolled.
What 310 is really about is cities that declare themselves sanctuaries.
When faced with a choice between going after the near enemy and the far enemy, conservatives are pretty easy to predict.
I should add that there are actually several different versions of the bill in 315. I vaguely recall that one of them has the attorney general as enforcer, rather than the secretary of state. I think.
If we've reached the point where its Supreme Court oral arguments and A Prairie Home Companion for fun, I think we need someone to teach us how to take off our glasses, go to the local nightclub, and have some hijinks.
I think what this place needs is some sort of cool dude teacher who can show this bunch of nerds how to party, kind of like Mark Harmon in Summer School (n.b., this may not be the plot of Summer School).
What 310 is really about is cities that declare themselves sanctuaries.
Yes, I'm quite sure it was intended that way, but as written it is very much more expansive.
Halford, one engages in in hijinks, one doesn't "have" them. I would think a Californian of all people would know that. Or perhaps the couch-throwing Megan has skewed my impression of you as lighthearted folks.
That's just what someone who doesn't know from hijinks would say.
Hmmm, on further review Summer School seems to be totally the wrong model. In that film, Mark Harmon takes a bunch of know-nothings and makes them learn to love knowledge. We need the opposite approach; I want our cool mentor to encourage less CSPAN and more bikini parties. What is the 1980s teen comedy I am thinking of?
318: Not "for fun". You missed the part about how this is when I'm driving home from work. Don't make me take my hair down now, Halford.
Radio pickings are pretty sparse early Saturday evening.
The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn, every Saturday at 5 p.m. for those of you with a web connection.
And now, to bed.
I like Black Robe, and not just because I like looking at Sandrine Holt. The Euro-Americans haven't got a fucking clue. The Natives understand their world -- a cruel place -- and don't understand the Euro-Americans at all. Everybody loses.
Black Robe has NO bikini parties, Carp. Let's get on track, people.
I'm pretty sure The Sure Thing has bikinis. It also has John Cusack.
OK, now I'm really going to bed.
Holt doesn't need a bikini. She seduces the Iroquois guard just by looking him in the eye.
311
So wait, If I sue some restaurant employing illegals, they have to give me money? That sounds like pretty easy money.
Almost as easy as ADA lawsuits in California?
Everybody loses.
O Canada: so uplifting! (in fact, the history of the Jesuits in New France is a fascinating story, though not always morally edifying).
There's no shame in taking an interest in Supreme Court oral arguments, even on a Saturday evening.
To win an ADA suit, I have to have a disability, and they have to have refused me a reasonable accomodation. If I can get money just by guessing correctly that some restaurant in a big city is employing illegals, that's going to be easy stuff.
You can make money this way off of people who send spam faxes. One of my friends made 10K in a semester doing this. But there the money is coming from the people sending spam faxes, not from the government. There's no good reason not to do the same thing here (that is have the employers pay the busy-bodies rather than the government). Of course, the actually effective thing here would be to give out green cards to employees for turning in their employer.
Black Robe is fantastic, at least for people with a certain kind of historical taste sensibility. A historian I know who spent some time researching in the Jesuit Relations was really impressed with the film.
Huh. I meant to strike sensibility and keep taste.
From the article, it looks like a lot of the access cases are perfectly justified. It's no knock on a guy to have sued 50 places, if every one of them was not in compliance.
Some are bogus. Welcome to the actual world: there's no solution to bogus claims I've heard that doesn't catch a bunch of non-bogus claims as well.
Well, I just spent an hour of my Saturday night watching a documentary on the Bundesverfassungsgericht after I told some friends I was too tired to go out dancing, so I suppose i'm the one who really deserves Halford's ire here.
330
To win an ADA suit, I have to have a disability, and they have to have refused me a reasonable accomodation. ...
Untrue. In California you don't have to give them a chance to correct any problem (and you don't have to prove any damages).
334
From the article, it looks like a lot of the access cases are perfectly justified. It's no knock on a guy to have sued 50 places, if every one of them was not in compliance.
Same would seem to apply to suing businesses for employing illegals.
I think the "get people to find law violations by paying the people reporting" actually makes sense, if the underlying law is a good law and there's no obviously better way to enforce the law. Of course the problem here is that the underlying immigration law is not a good one, which is the problem here.
336 -- Yeah, I wasn't aware what a stupid hash Cal had made of it with such a high guaranteed minimum. But really, who's not on notice of the kinds of access issues in the successful suits in the article? This has been on the books a long time: people should be hiring architects and consultants to design their public spaces.
The plaintiff in an ADA suit has to be disabled, and has to have experienced the violation. I don't experience a violation if I eat in a restaurant that employs illegal dishwashers.
That is, I don't see the ADA as really having the same kind of qui tam aspect as you'd want to design if you were really trying to use the general public to crack down.
I thought the CA Supreme Court opinion in Munson on this ADA abuse thing was pretty good. Excerpt:
Finally, defendant argues that interpreting section 51, subdivision (f) and the Unruh Civil Rights Act as a whole to permit a damages remedy for ADA accessibility violations that do not involve intentional discrimination "would spur abuses in an already troubled legal arena." (See Gunther, supra, 144 Cal.App.4th at pp. 250-251 [reviewing federal court decisions noting a pattern of abusive litigation under the ADA and state law].) We recently addressed a similar argument that in order to suppress abusive litigation by serial plaintiffs or attorneys seeking only financial gain, often through extortion of settlements from small businesses, more should be required of Unruh Civil Rights Act plaintiffs. (Angelucci v. Century Supper Club, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 178.)[11] Observing that we "share[d] to some degree the[se] concerns," we nonetheless found they "do not supply a justification for our inserting additional elements of proof into the cause of action defined by the statute. It is for the Legislature (or the People through the initiative process) to determine whether to alter the statutory elements of proof to afford business establishments protection against abusive private legal actions and settlement tactics. It is for the Legislature, too, to consider whether limitations on the current statutory private cause of action might unduly weaken enforcement of the Act or place unwarranted barriers in the way of those persons who suffer discrimination and whose interests were intended to be served by the Act." (Angelucci, at p. 179.) Here, too, we are bound to interpret the Unruh Civil Rights Act in accordance with the legislative intent as we can best discern it, regardless of any policy views we may hold.
In its most recent regular session, moreover, the Legislature tackled the challenge of improving compliance with access laws while protecting businesses from abusive access litigation. In chapter 549 of the 2008 Statutes (Sen. Bill No. 1608 (2007-2008 Reg. Sess.)), the Legislature enacted several provisions with this purpose, including (1) a requirement that any attorney serving a complaint or sending a demand for money for a "construction-related accessibility claim"[12] must include a notice informing the recipient, among other things, that he or she is not required to pay any money until found liable by a court and may have a right to have the action stayed pending an early evaluation conference (§ 55.3); (2) procedures for voluntary inspection of a property by a "certified access specialist" or "CASp" (§ 55.53); (3) procedures for staying actions raising construction-related accessibility claims for 90 days (extendable to 180 days), if the property has been inspected by a CASp, for the plaintiff to provide details of his or her claims, damages, and attorney fees incurred, and for the court to hold an early evaluation conference during the stay period in order to evaluate the site's current condition and progress toward correcting any alleged violations, settlement possibilities, and sharing of further information between the parties (§ 55.54); and (4) provisions for the court to consider written settlement offers made and rejected when determining the amount of reasonable attorney fees on a construction-related accessibility claim (§ 55.55).
Most pertinent here, the new legislation (applicable to claims filed on or after Jan. 1, 2009 (§ 55.57)) restricts the availability of statutory damages under sections 52 and 54.3, permitting their recovery only if an accessibility violation actually denied the plaintiff full and equal access, that is, only if "the plaintiff personally encountered the violation on a particular occasion, or the plaintiff was deterred from accessing a place of public accommodation on a particular occasion" (§ 55.56, subd. (b)). It also limits statutory damages to one assessment per occasion of access denial, rather than being based on the number of accessibility standards violated. (Id., subd. (e).)
The 2008 Legislature was informed--and may be presumed to have been aware--that damages under the Unruh Civil Rights Act might be awarded for denial of ADA-mandated access without proof of intentional discrimination.[13] Yet, although two other bills introduced in the same session would have required accessibility plaintiffs to give businesses prelitigation notice of any violation and an opportunity to cure,[14] the reform approach the Legislature ultimately chose did not include requiring such notice or other proof of intent to discriminate. Instead, the Legislature chose to impose limitations on damages and attorney fees, coupled with a scheme of accessibility inspections, stays of litigation, and mandatory evaluation conferences. Even if we agreed with defendant that adding an intent requirement to the Unruh Civil Rights Act would be warranted to curb abuse, we would not be free to substitute our own judgment for that of the Legislature.
340
The plaintiff in an ADA suit has to be disabled, and has to have experienced the violation. I don't experience a violation if I eat in a restaurant that employs illegal dishwashers.
How about if you are denied employment by such a business? Or if you are trying to compete while obeying the law?
342
The opinion just seems to be saying that the Democrats that control the California legislature weren't very enthusiastic about cracking down on abusive lawsuits. So what?
I don't see the problem with letting the people pick law enforcement priorities. So long as they're not violating equal protection or due process ofindividuals. I mean, we'd let the legislature do it, right? What is the reason for having an irrevocable delegation of some kind to elected officials?
Of course, in the US you don't have private prosecutions, do you? That's the doctrine you really need here, isn't? I mean, some of these private rights of action are just a funny kind of statute created tort, with certain extra bits added on to make them work better (that is, they are wrongs, not quite crimes, but directly impacting you, that lead to a right to seek a corresponding remedy), whereas others are pretty clearly invitations to run your own private prosecution (that is, wrongs, basically against society, that lead to a right to seek a corresponding response).
(Classically, you have delegation to (ideally) unelected officials precisely to keep `the people' from setting priorities, in favour of the dispassionate technocrats.)
(I must admit I am obsessed with the private prosecution.)
320: I thought the only thing that happened with hikjinks was ensuing.
One woman's hijinks are another man's hilarity.
Went to bed, woke up, read the thread, still no bikini party.
My understanding is that the ADA shakedown thing was kinda sorta a real racket for a while, but is mostly not an issue these days. New construction complies anyway, and the various restrictions on penalties and standing mean that it's not a particularly attractive avenue for shakedown suits.
You can, and should, always tinker with the laws to prevent obvious abuse but the bottom line net result is that the ADA is an amazing accomplishment (one of the few areas in which the USA really is a leader) which would not have been implemented as seriously but for citizen suit provisions.
If I thought enforcement of the immigration laws was a good thing, I would support a private right of action to enforce those laws. But I don't, so I don't.
I'm not necessarily against "strict enforcement of immigration laws," rather I'm against our immigration laws. The thing to do is legalize more immigration, not semi-legalize extra-legal immigration. (Of course, the government can no longer pass any laws as a result of ideological sorting combined with a poorly designed constitution, so ignoring the law might be the best available option.)
Well, I favor strict enforcement of the immigration laws I can dream up in my head, but not the actually-existing ones.
353
... a poorly designed constitution ...
The Senate filibuster rule is not in the constitution of course.
Don't let Halford pressure you into bland conformity, Parsi! Learning is one of the top five greatest joys in life, along with sex, beer, music and spooning! Learning isn't like buying lottery ticket that might pay off, its like finding five dollars!
Let your nerd flag fly!
Oh wait, and coffee. Learning is one of the six greatest joys in life!
Learning is OK. Supreme Court oral arguments and Prairie Home Companion? No. Bikini Parties are not bland conformity, they are awesome, as we will find out once I can remember which 80s teen comedy hero will lead us out of the wilderness.
Can we get comity if we learn about supreme court arguments while wearing a bikini?
(I can in no way defend Garrison Keillor)
357: Val Kilmer in Real Genius?
357: My roommates and I threw a party our junior year that, based on the invite we made causing a misapprehension, ended up being something of a dress-to-get-laid party (aka naked or near naked). I wore bra and panties and a silk smoking jacket. (SHUT UP. I was reappropriating the signifiers of my objectification.) And it wasn't just the women. We had multiple freshmen boys gogo-ing in animal print bikini briefs to the then-new George Michael album. Under blacklights. In the windows. At one point I went to use the bathroom -- this is my own apartment, mind -- and some dude I'd never seen before had set up shop and was dealing in there. The cops shut the whole thing down at about midnight. Boo.
If you can prove you were discriminated against in employment on account of national origin, you have a claim. If you're trying to compete, and it's not working, you can pester ICE.
Moles and trolls, moles and trolls, work, work, work, work, work. We never see the light of day. We plan this thing for weeks and all they want to do is listen to old Supreme Court oral arguments. I'm disgusted. I'm sorry but it's not like me, I'm depressed. There was what, no one at the mutant hamster races, we only had one entry into the Madame Curie look-alike contest and he was disqualified later. Why do I bother?
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19720307/PEOPLE/41116001/1023
354: Indeed, though without the filibuster it would still be only possible to do things in 2 year windows ever 10ish years. (It's never in the interest of the party without the president to pass any legislation, and the incumbent's party will always lose the midterm elections.)
365
... It's never in the interest of the party without the president to pass any legislation, ...
Perhaps you mean any legislation that the President will sign. Still not entirely true but closer. And there are some bills that pass with bipartisan support, the bankruptcy bill or NCLB for example.
illegals
Hey guys, it's time for me to put on my humorless hat and say: Yo, don't use that word.
People aren't illegal, even if their immigration status is. If you think slurs like this don't have consequences, consider that their casual use makes it acceptable to dehumanize immigrants and their children in other ways, like denying them education:
FOLEY, Alabama -- Many of the 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary came to school Thursday crying and afraid, said Principal Bill Lawrence.
Nineteen of them withdrew, and another 39 were absent, Lawrence said, the day after a federal judge upheld much of Alabama's strict new immigration law, which authorizes law enforcement to detain people suspected of not being U.S. citizens and requires schools to ask new enrollees for a copy of their birth certificate.
Even more of the students -- who are U.S. citizens by birth, but their parents may not be -- were expected to leave the state over the weekend, Lawrence said.
"It's been a challenging day, an emotional day. My children have been in tears today. They're afraid," he said. "We have been in crisis-management mode, trying to help our children get over this."
I have a lot of experience with the contempt that leads to these kinds of laws. Oddly enough, there is remarkably little overlap between people with legitimate fears and anxieties over immigration and the ones who choose to use the most hateful and venomous language.
Please don't contribute to this poisonous environment.
Thanks.
367
Please don't contribute to this poisonous environment.
You don't understand. I want to encourage hostility towards illegals and the politicians (like Perry) who support them.
366: It's true that democrats have not yet realized that obstruction is in their electoral interest, and it's possible that they may never realize that. In which case we'll occasionally get big business supported legislation when there's a democratic congress and a republican president. I suppose immigration reform is actually one of the more likely candidates for such a piece of legislation.
Historically, in the US there's not that much evidence that divided government (i.e., President and Congress are in different parties) prevents legislation whereas unified government allows for it. Of course, as the parties become more ideologically coherent, that may be changing.
368: No, I think you missed the fact that comments appealing to the shared moral values of the bulk of the people who comment here generally aren't addressed to you.
I love it how Shearer is all nerd, nerd, nerd, INSANE RACISM, nerd, nerd, nerd.
371
No, I think you missed the fact that comments appealing to the shared moral values of the bulk of the people who comment here generally aren't addressed to you.
I missed the fact that other people had used the term "illegal".
370: US politics has only become one dimensionally ideologically sorted (consevative/liberal) in the past 20 years or so. Prior to that it was two dimensional (conservative/liberal and white supremacist/not), which allowed for more flexibility in coalitions.
372
I love it how Shearer is all nerd, nerd, nerd, INSANE RACISM, nerd, nerd, nerd.
What would you consider to be sane racism?
Despite his apparent desire to live in a '60s beach party movie, Halford gets it right in 370. Upetgi seems to be generalizing from this administration's experiences, but I don't think it's clear that dems haven't obstructed legislation in the past for electoral reasons.
I'd like to think that Democratic obstruction is more nobly motivated by old-fashioned stuff like 'This is shitty legislation that's a really bad idea and will hurt people/the country in the long or short term, so we're against it.' But of course lots of Republicans think that's exactly why they're against every damn thing these days as well.
It's not racism, it's Social Darwinism. You can tell because the issue of people exploiting their ability to sue under the ADA has led to a the rare occurrence of JBS letting slip the "being of pure reason" mask (see 272).
374 -- that's roughly true, but it's way more complicated than that. The shifting coalitions were over more things than just race.
On the race question, it's worth noting that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 couldn't have passed without Republican support, b/c of the makeup of the Democratic party. And not just New England liberal Republicans, either, but conservative business republicans like Dirksen.
On Witt's 367: "Illegals" is deprecated for very damn good reasons, but I'm also not clear on what the preferred term actually is. I tend to use "illegal aliens", on the thought that this leaves "alien" to mean "not a U.S. citizen" and it distinguishes between non-citizens here legally, and those here illegally. On the other hand, "alien" is kind of otherizing, if you see what I mean.
People not infrequently use the term "undocumented workers" instead, and this rubs me somewhat the wrong way to the extent that it seems to cast people chiefly as, well, workers. Bzzt. Not to mention the fact that I believe, perhaps wrongly (?) that it's not exactly that it's fine to reside here illegally (viz., you have no legally acceptable documents showing that you are here legally), as long as you don't try to work.
? Sorry if this is fussy or insensitive in some way, but I honestly am not sure how to look at this, and what term to use.
Undocumented persons. And that's partly preferred terminology because "undocumented" may mean illegal, but may also mean "here legally but lacking documents."
You don't even need to say "undocumented Steve" because no one named Steve can get a passport or license.
Ugh. And I ban myself. "Undocumented" may mean "here without legal authority." It does not mean illegal ever, for the reasons Witt *just* explained.
The reason people have to sue over ADA violations is that there is no other mechanism for enforcement. There are no inspectors, there is no body charged with ensuring compliance. The sole way of getting accommodations is by being somebody with a disability and suing places that are breaking the law.
Also, you don't get any money from any ADA suits. You just get the violator court-ordered to comply. Some states (CA is one) allow for civil suits and cash prizes, but that's not under the ADA, it's under state law. And regardless, if companies just followed the law about being accessible, serial lawsuits wouldn't happen.
I mean, I'm sure that one guy is a total jerk and is just doing it to get rich and he probably isn't even very smart or pretty, but there are an awful lot of unaccessible places around, and a lot of business owners who are absolutely unwilling to make any changes on their own.
In addition to being good law the ADA has been a boon to skatepunks. Also the Segway would be even more of a joke than it already is without the ADA. The major downside is that Daleks are harder to evade.
Undocumented immigrants is longer but I think better than undocumented persons. The term comes up so much in my workplace that it's turned into "undocs."
387: Yes. Undocumented immigrants.
What a grim situation we have.
371
... shared moral values ...
And this has nothing to do with moral values, you all are fine with disparaging groups as numerous negative comments about Republicans, Southerners, Christians, frat boys, white people, hippies et al show. What I don't share with the bulk of the people here is the same enemies list.
Very few of us want to disparage people so that it is easier to deport them.
318 et seq. halford, your problem here all along has been assuming you need a DUDE to lead you from the wilderness of nerddom to the shining lands of bikini pool parties. what if it were a hot chick you needed all along? c'mon everybody, let's join in another chorus of "the patriarchy hurts men too."
390
Very few of us want to disparage people so that it is easier to deport them.
That's because for the most part your enemies aren't deportable. But I don't recall a lot of concern for the rights of alleged aging Nazis.
And you can and do disparage people so that it is easier to convict them of crimes.
Shows what you know. I started a group to provide animal companions to aging Nazis. Bund Bunnies is what we call it.
318 et seq. halford, your problem here all along has been assuming you need a DUDE to lead you from the wilderness of nerddom to the shining lands of bikini pool parties. what if it were a hot chick you needed all along?
I thought it was pretty clear that Megan was our only hope.
I used the term, despite knowing better, to save keystrokes. I'll try to do better in future.
'Political benefit' depends on whether your voters will support it. The Republican base seems a whole lot happier with obstruction right now than a whole lot of the Democratic base -- and I do not mean the self-identifying Left -- has been in the recent past anyway. The bases are sufficiently different, qualitatively, that strategies have to be quite different. You'd think this would be obvious, but every day I read someone on the internet suggesting strategies that would alienate voters.
391 is a good point. We need a woman wearing a bra and panties and a silk smoking jacket to lead us to the promised land.
396: But surely no person fits the bill.
387, 388: "Immigrants" is a misleading term. My BF is on a work visa (technically a status, since he's from Canada.) Under the law he's not considered an immigrant. I think you need to have permanent residency or be in the process of getting it to be classed as an immigrant.
399: I think that ship has sailed. Absolutely everyone under the sun uses the word "immigrant," with the exception of actual immigration lawyers or bureaucrats who need the narrow precision of distinguishing between non-immigrant visas and immigrant visas.
And frankly, this is one area of language where I favor descriptive rather than prescriptive. The distinction just makes no common sense outside of a narrow legal context (and even there you get bizarre concepts like "dual intent," as if a person can be legally a non-immigrant and an immigrant at the same time).
Note to James: Thank you for proving my point so perfectly in 14 minutes flat. (Oddly enough, there is remarkably little overlap between people with legitimate fears and anxieties over immigration and the ones who choose to use the most hateful and venomous language. .)
Please note that no matter how thoroughly I disagree with people politically and how odious I find their beliefs, I do not want them to be arrested, imprisoned, or deported because of them. Nor do I want them or their children to be deprived of food, healthcare, education, or safety in their daily lives.
But I don't recall a lot of concern for the rights of alleged aging Nazis.
Demjanjuk got more due process than Troy Davis or Anwar al-Aulaqi. And Demjanjuk (Wikipedia tells me) is 91 and still alive.
Certainly anyone who thought Demjanjuk should be deported without a hearing, or executed based on a phony ID, is properly regarded as illiberal in this matter.
But you are right, James, that different people have different enemies lists. Pat Buchanan likes to defend the civil rights of alleged Nazis, but his general disregard for civil rights otherwise causes me to suspect that it's not the civil rights that he supports.
400: Sure, but it does get confusing for people sometimes. We had an issue here where not-quite immigrants awaiting their green cards were entitled only to a cheaper subsidized health insurance on the Commonwealth. It was confusing to a lot of people and not well explained by the media.
(The undocumented persons could get free care at hospitals (paid for by the state) but no insurance.)
Also my personal, minor pet peeve. My BF pays into the unemployment insurance system, but if he gets laid off he can't collect anything.
I thought Black Robe was freakin' brilliant, the best movie ever made about native-European contact. As Charlie said, great depiction of total mutual incomprehension. And it picks up on the ways that European society was also "primitive".
I think we need a lot less low-skill immigration. It's a cheap labor agenda, basically. (And employers do the same thing at the higher skill level with H1-Bs, but the equity implications are different).
The problem with undocumented immigrants is that it implies that they just don't happen to have their documents right now, and if they went in the other room and got them they would be legal.
I'd be for the amnesty/stop any further illegal immigration compromise except for how badly it belly-flopped in 86...need to really, really crack down on employers this time. Whatever your immigration perspective it does seem like some form of amnesty is needed for people already rooted here, hard to see any other way.
I'd be for the amnesty/stop any further illegal immigration compromise
I just don't think there's any politically plausible way to shut down illegal immigration to a level that's well below the rate at which people want to immigrate -- the options are to allow legal immigration at a rate fairly close to the rate at which people want to immigrate, or to find a humane and civilized way of managing a lot of people who have entered the US without legal process. (Keeping tight limits on the number of people who are allowed to immigrate legally might reduce the total number of immigrants somewhat, but it's never going to knock down the undocumented immigration rate to a point where we don't need to figure how to deal with it.)
I did at one time say "illegal immigrant": I think it's not necessarily semantically wrong, since "illegal" can refer to the act, not the person, but usage has made it problematic - "illegal" as a noun has overshadowed any neutrality it might once have had.
407: the easy solution is for us to obliterate our economy and simultaneously pump up drug war-caused violence to heroic levels. Then people will happily stay put!
409. Well the first part of that seems to be going well, maybe you should concentrate on part two. Could you substitute other forms of insane violence in a pinch?
No, part 2 is going exceedingly well.
I got into a conversation the other day with a coworker whose political trappings were mysterious to me. She was describing how there are a lot of wealthy border families who have recently fled border violence, and don't speak any English. Apparently her son's high school is really swelling with this new group in the last few years. (She was very sympathetic to the struggles of all involved, but I couldn't quite tell if she was drawing a contrast with unsympathetic migrants or not.)
407
I just don't think there's any politically plausible way to shut down illegal immigration to a level that's well below the rate at which people want to immigrate - ...
We have already done this, immigration rates would be much higher if there were no restrictions. And we could cut it a lot further just by actually making it illegal to hire undocs (as opposed to present law that pretends to make it illegal but actually makes it difficult not to).