Anyone linked the Al Franken story yet? Goddamn comedians.
1 Mentioned it in the Traister thread but no link. Fucking hell.
I am really feeling such a surge of anger. Not just about Franken, but about all the deep fucking disregard for women everywhere.
If you edit really quickly, no-one will ever know reality pwned you.
4 More anger is needed. Sustained anger.
But Pryor carefully stripped the whole event of context. In real life, Pryor's dad reportedly died of a heart attack while molesting his own 13-year-old daughter, Pryor's half-sister
I'm reminded about the relation between comedy and trauma in so many a comedian's life. Comedy as sublimation.
It was a different time, and in that time, there was complete widespread agreement that women suck - except that you need them for sex - but outside of that you can and should make fun of them a lot and get sex however you can. And also it wasn't that different a time. I think that's what's got me so riled up.
...and concluded that the wife must be an astonishingly awesome, amazing person.
Lots of people write their own vows these days. Maybe he added "and no surprise corpses".
You've rehabilitated Tarantino's image in my mind a bit there Heebie. I misogynist wouldn't have written that. (And it's true that so many of his films involve powerful women getting revenge on men who have wronged them but his response to the Weinstein scandal has been less than optimal.)
I really can only take so much Tarantino. Seeing Pulp Fiction was fine. I sort of wish I didn't see the Kill Bills. One of these days, I will watch Reservoir Dogs. Or at least read the plot summary on Wikipedia.
A misogynist wouldn't have written that.
Sure, a misogynist could have written that. They're not a separate category of human, they're most of us.
In real life, Pryor's dad reportedly died of a heart attack while molesting his own 13-year-old daughter, Pryor's half-sister
Holy shit. I realize she must be an older adult by now, but how does one recover from this.
The current moment has caused me to be thoroughly grateful that I never got into comedy as a form of entertainment. I'm sure something I am into will be next on the chopping block, though.
Watch Jackie Brown! It's great, and less violent than a typical action movie.
I did watch Jackie Brown and I liked it. I forgot it was a Tarantino movie.
I hope sincerely that 15 never proves to be to 14.
I sort of wish I didn't see the Kill Bills.
I skipped them and feel fine about my decision.
I love the Kill Bill movies, esp. Volume 2, to an embarrassing degree.
Kill Bill 2 was my favorite Tarantino, until I saw Jackie Brown.
The Franken thing is awful. I had such a crush on him, one of the only politicians I actually admired. Fuck.
I feel like the 70s and 80s make more sense culturally once you take as a starting point that men were keenly aware that equality was now a basic societal principle, but that this perversely gave misogyny a new hip-and-cool vibe (among them, and in backrooms) and they therefore felt empowered to get it out there in new ways.
Young Heebie loved True Romance to an embarrassing degree; I'm not sure how well Clarence and Alabama would hold up, but I sort of don't want to wreck the memory.
23 is insightful. It's so fun to feel edgy and transgressive.
For years I thought that Jackie Brown was more restrained than your typical Tarantino movie because he was directing someone else's screenplay, but wikipedia informs me that I was wrong and he did write as well as direct.
And I don't want these comedians to be torn down! That's so unsatisfying! I want Al Franken to be the kind of person who never would have done something like that because he understood women to be full human beings!
27: Well, it was based on someone else's novel.
12: If you would rather have not watched the Kill Bills, you'll want to skip Reservoir Dogs, too, I suspect. Jackie Brown is underrated, in my opinion.
Franken is all the more disappointing for being surprising. I'm trying to think of what comedian it would appall me the most to find this out about. Right now, I'd say Stephen Colbert.
Al Franken made kind a mean-spirited not-funny joke to Alex Trebek on Celebrity Jeopardy. It made me think maybe he really wasn't a nice guy.
Essentially zero comedians are nice guys.
I was talking to RWM about Louis CK and talking about how I genuinely loved his TV show, but not in a way that made me feel like I loved him personally just the work. And always you're really only interacting with artists and performers through their work, but sometimes you still feel like you like some people personally. Anyway Stephen Colbert was then the example I gave of someone where I'd be genuinely heartbroken because I do think of him as an actually good person.
22, yeah. Fuck. I'm angry at reality. Fuck.
33.last The Mr. Rogers of comedy.
Ugggh, I hadn't seen the Al Franken story, and it's just demoralizing. I just read his book this summer, and he's very appealing, and that story just curdles my affection for him.
Jackie Brown is very good (and introduced me to Bobby Womack).
The OP is great, and I cringed reading it.
I didn't listen to any of the commedians Heebie-Geebie mentions. The two commedy albums that I was most attached to as a teenager were Woody Allen stand-up, and Steve Martin's A Wild And Crazy Guy. Less cursing, more wordplay, and some jokes making fun of women but they didn't dominate. But, obviously, they are both sort of off-putting personalities at this point.
On a slightly more positive note, you know what holds up reasonably well from the era? Steven Wright's special. I came across it on youtube a couple months ago, watched the first 20 minutes, and was surprised at how good it was. Please nobody tell me that he's super-creepy as well.
I thought that the Pryor/CK article was weird. It's true that comedians use "brave truth telling" as an excuse for being sexist assholes. Kennison is a good example. But how does that fit CK? Kennison's entire monologue was about how awful women were. CK really did make jokes about his own white privilege. He has a whole bit around the line "There is no greater threat to women than men," because men are so frequently abusive. The article goes beyond "I can never watch 'Chinatown' because of what Polanski did," to "'Chinatown' was bad all along'.
32: Right. I always took it for granted that comedians, as a class, tend to be creeps.
Anyway Stephen Colbert was then the example I gave of someone where I'd be genuinely heartbroken because I do think of him as an actually good person.
He's dead now, but I'd be sad if there were a bunch of stories about George Carlin.
Young Bill Murray was clearly a dick, and assault stories from the '70s or '80s about him would be little or no surprise, but I'd be bummed if goofy, party-crashing, older Murray were actually still the truly bad person I presume he once was.
Anyway, I've said, more or less seriously, that women* need to hold all the political offices for a century or two; we should probably extend that to more or less everything. I can be a homemaker or dig ditches or whatever, if that would somehow help.
*I guess non-cis/het males would do
38: But the point about CK is that if you go back and reexamine that stuff, it was a lot closer to deflection/self-excusing than actual truth. And this isn't just something that's clear in retrospect. Here's Melissa McEwan at Shakesville in 2012 addressing the Daily Show segment in which he supposedly rejected rape jokes:
Finally, compartmentalizing Louis CK's "evolution" and misogynist jokes into two separate pieces, in order to praise the former, elides the fact that misogyny underwrites rape culture. He didn't say that he realizes rape culture exists in a void; he said it in a segment in which he used a classic feminist silencing trope, a misogynist slur, gender essentialist humor, and told women to "shut the fuck up for a minute." Extricating his "evolution" from that context is to fail to acknowledge that treating women as less than is a key feature of rape culture.Essentially he was mouthing feminist sentiment without actually taking it on, and without rejecting privilege/patriarchy/rape culture. And he was doing it with this two-step move of "I'm a shitty person, but even I get this, but I'm shitty, so don't judge me for falling short." He wanted credit but he also wanted a pass. Not exactly the Nice Guy maneuver, but a close cousin.
It seems like this is another case where "kidding on the square" is a useful concept.
I might suffer an aneurysm if someone accused Alan Alda of anything untoward.
"CK really did make jokes about his own white privilege. He has a whole bit around the line "There is no greater threat to women than men," because men are so frequently abusive."
I don't go around abusing women like Loius CK. Can I not all men one of the actual men?
I did like Louis CK but I am happy not to watch anymore of his stuff. last couple of specials were meh.
I actually never watch standup anymore. There was a time, not that long ago, when I'd see a fair amount of clips on YouTube, but I rarely do even that now. I don't think I've watched an entire special* in 10 or 20 or more years. A big part of that is simply living without cable; affirmatively choosing one from Netflix, instead of an actual movie or funny TV show simply never appeals to me.
*exception: something reminded me of Jake Johanssen, whose ca. 1994 special was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen, and last year I thought to track it down and rewatch. Held up OK, better than I'd guess most 20 year old standup does.
"I can never watch 'Chinatown' because of what Polanski did,"
I don't generally become retroactively unable to enjoy things because of revelations about the artist. The art itself can age poorly, like the homophobic riffs in Eddie Murphy's early stuff that cracked my brothers and I up back in the 80s when we were 9 and 11 years old. But if the movie or book or whatever is still good, I'm not prevented from appreciating by knowing too much about the creators.
It does work in the opposite direction and a work can be preemptively ruined for me. For instance, I never read Ender's Game back when I was reading lots of SF. Since then, the only thing I've heard about Orson Scott Card, other than the fact that he wrote Ender's Game, is that he's a loudmouth conservative bigot. That knowledge would probably spoil the book for me at this point.
42: CK's defense of Tosh was garbage. But I don't buy that it applies to the entirety of his work. I don't even mean that we need to separate the man from the work -- I have never seen Chinatown and I have no plans to do so -- but this goes much further. This is supposing that the man and the work are one, that the meaning of a work is entirely bound up on whether it is a sincere and authentic expression of his inner soul. There is nothing left but to staple a biography to every single piece of art we consume.
CK's stand up was always an artifice, a performance. It was never a pure expression of his innermost being, whether or not he's a serial sexual harasser. It's one thing to think that the memory of it is tainted by what we now know, and it's another thing to say that it was never what it pretended to be. All art is what it pretends to be. That's what art is.
I'm with 48. I think Polanski should be in jail or at least have another day in court but I still love and would watch again many of his films, Chinatown, Repulsion, Knife in the Water, The Tenant, etc.
Anyway Stephen Colbert was then the example I gave of someone where I'd be genuinely heartbroken because I do think of him as an actually good person.
Oh God, yeah. I used the same example the other day, while discussing this with Mr JPJ.
36
Mr. Rogers molested Queen Sara.
Oscar the Grouch used to slap Maria on the ass when the cameras stopped recording.
Ernie abused Bert.
Le/Var Burton jerked off into the books before children read them.
48 is right. Woody Allen's early, funny ones I enjoyed and could still enjoy. Manhatten creeped me out all by itself before the rest of the shit hit the fan.
I'm not sure why, but "Ernie abused Burt" seems worse than "Burt abused Ernie."
It's because we all know in our hearts that the second one is true.
55, 54 It was right there in front of our eyes the whole time. And just thinking about all the emotional labor Ernie was forced to perform to keep Bert placated is exhausting.
No, it's because Burt didn't have any other friends to turn to. All he had was Ernie, pigeons, and his bottlecap collection.
I confess that I'd be pretty upset if any ugly stories surfaced about Kermit the frog.
I was a little surprised to find that I hate stand-up because I grew up thinking I loved it, until I was old enough to hear routines not cleaned up for television. I went to some comedy club in NYC when I was visiting with some friends in college and mostly I just remember the last act we saw before leaving was a guy who wasn't funny at all cheering himself on as he cleared the room.
We didn't leave because of that guy, it just happened to be when we left, but I'd like to think we'd have walked out on him anyway because he was much more crudely misogynistic than the earlier acts. I don't remember anything remarkable about the earlier acts, just mostly not funny.
Heebie, that is a fantastic post.
I don't know any bad stories about Colbert, but I've read complaints that he isn't the wokest of the woke.
I've never been to a comedy club. I went to a couple of stand-up acts in larger venues. Dennis Leary, Bill Maher, maybe one or two others. It was a different time.
59
You don't even want to know.
Bob Newhart would be my heart-breaking one. And I'd be sad if Mitch Headburg, one of my other favourites, was a creep but not shocked.
Remember the Elmo puppeteer harassment/abuse news? Ugh.
The only time I've been to a comedy club, all I could think was "Don't give up the day job." In bigger venues Alexei Sayle's stand up was genuinely funny if you find that sort of thing funny, but bollox to all the rest.
I don't know that I've seen much in the way of stand-up comedy, per se, but comedians as a group are always a bunch that I often have liked when they show up in TV and movies, or when they become script-writers.
61: Sure, though that story doesn't exactly surprise me.
He's a bit of a civil rights fan boy (see his Belafonte interview), but seems stuck in an a bit of an old school "color blind" viewpoint. I don't think he's perfect. But I would be surprised to say hear a story about him like the Jon Stewart/Wyatt Cenac story. Even in the newspaper article you link you can see part of the point which is he does have a reputation as a good boss who shows loyalty. Very low staff turnover is a big part of why I'd be shocked if he turned out to be a harasser. (Jon Stewart on the other hand, wouldn't be surprised at all.)
Everything is shit, as someone recently tweeted, and along those lines I would not be surprised to see a future Senate with Franken out and Roy Moore chairing the Committee on Patriarchal Relations.
I'd be sad if there were a bunch of stories about George Carlin
I liked Carlin a lot when I was a kid, but when I have seen his stuff more recently (particularly from later in his career), it just isn't that funny.
(Jon Stewart on the other hand, wouldn't be surprised at all.)
I wouldn't think that about Jon Stewart, but wouldn't call myself a good judge. But, on the general topic of the 90s being a very different time, Jon Stewart, on MTV, interviewing Alicia Silverstone is a very odd time capsule.
If Franken came out with an apology along the lines of:
"I am horrified by who I was and what I did back then, and I can't apologize deeply enough,"
would that be enough to continue to support him politically? Is there a sincere apology available that continues his career?
72: For something that he did in 78 or 83? Probably. 2096, as a middle-aged man. Unlikely. He's put out s lit of good legislation about sexual assault in the military too. Damn and double damn.
He didn't mention the kissing thing, which I thought was more exploitative. But then it didn't have evidence.
I know a few people who have done stand-up, and they are ok, but of course they are already sorted by acquaintance with me. Jackie Brown is, in my view, the best Elmore Leonard adaptation, including the screenplays Leonard adapted himself. Boo on Franken.
The apology is OK. I wouldn't mind if he would also propose a penance. Some sort of 'going forward, if allowed, I'll shepherd a bill written by Planned Parenthood every year.'
It would be a lot more interesting if he were apologizing for something he's going to do in 2096.
The TimePologist: the sci-fi series about the world's first time-traveling preemptive sexual misconduct apology robot and his sidekick Fred the wisecracking time-traveling employment lawyer. They travel through the eons, apologizing preemptively.
81: Wait til you hear about what he's going to do in 2096.
82 - for one thing, it would say good things about the future of life-extension technology.
My short story about the time traveler who removes all of his pwned comments is riveting, I tell you.
Oh, duh. The typo confused me. Never mind.
Seeing on Twitter that McCaskill is returning FrankenPAC $$ and talking about an ethics investigation. Honestly, if Al is the price of a wide-ranging investigation, I'll cheer the whole thing (and not just because, cynically, I think it would be a net Dem gain).
There's already been talk about harassment on Capitol Hill, and IMO this could be the start of tsunami. Let's hear every claim against every Congressman & Senator.
55: Ernie is a monster. He is horrible to Burt - just watch the "I don't want to live on the moon" sequence.
If there's an abuser, it's obviously Ernie - Burt is already socially marginalized, non-neurotypical, etc, and Ernie is perpetually mocking and gaslighting him. People think Ernie is great because he's glib and funny and charming, and they think Burt is the bad one because in our society we assume that glib, funny, charming people can't possibly be abusers and that grumpy weirdos can't possibly be victims.
I am only sort of being lighthearted here.
Also, people were super abusive to poor Eeyore.
If Franken gave a plausible apology, if he asked his victim what reparation he could make to her or in her name to society and then followed through even if it was expensive or inconvenient, if he did something significant for a project that supports abused women and if no further allegations surfaced, I could possibly see his career continuing, particularly if he took on some work of educating men about not being like him.
I mean, what a garbage, hateful, contemptuous thing to do - inviting others to ridicule a vulnerable person as a way of sexually humiliating them.
Eeyore was asking for it. Look at the way he's dressed!
2017 has been an insanely chaotic, stressful, triggering, difficult year for many people, especially women reliving difficult, bad, even hellish situations.
And, yet, it feels like we are getting to a better place where perhaps 2018 will be a better for women. (This is perhaps flavored by 13/15 of Virginia's new Delegates being women, and more queued up for runs in 2018.)
OK but caution. 2018 is going to feel like more of 2016 and 2017 until (hopefully) November. That's a lot of 2018 that we have to work through before it might be better.
I think you're both wide-eyed optimists.
Yeah. That's how it was last time. Now I'm trying to qualify the optimism more.
Sad about Franken too. As for the kissing thing, if he really doesn't remember it at all, fair enough, he's not obligated to falsely confess, but it's suspiciously self-serving that he doesn't remember the thing there isn't evidence of.
The general topic of sexual harassment in Congress will be interesting. Let's hope it blows up. It's complicated by the fact that each Congressperson's office is their own feudal fiefdom, basically. I'm told that when someone who worked in one had a complaint about the chief of staff, their only recourse was to file an ethics complaint against their Congressperson. Given that they didn't actually want a lot of bad press for their boss, a Congressman in a swing district FWIW, this wasn't ideal.
The sad and infuriating part is that it probably wasn't important enough to him to remember it.
Or, rather, that her efforts to put an end to the joke routine weren't important enough to remember.
Anyway Stephen Colbert was then the example I gave of someone where I'd be genuinely heartbroken because I do think of him as an actually good person.
If it helps, I know a solid feminist who wrote for his show and says Colbert is a good guy, if not always doing the most right thing (see 61).
He (my friend) now writes for Samantha Bee and says it's a really great place to work.
I love My Favorite Murder because I love listening to two female comedians sit around being silly, not doing something scripted. In particular, Georgia Hardstarck does this thing that I find the epitome of female humor - all nuance and delivery, not a bang-on-the-drum punchline - and I adore it beyond all reason.
They had a live show where they split their time with two male comedians, and the gap in styles was so jarring and pronounced to me that I almost skipped the whole thing. The male comedians sounded like Morning FM DJs when paired so explicitly side-by-side the MFM comediennes.
Not a good apology from Franken.
The male comedians sounded like Morning FM DJs when paired so explicitly side-by-side the MFM comediennes.
At the other place, someone made a thread about how she wanted to make a conscious effort to only listen to music that wasn't misogynistic. She made the point about how music lyrics seep into you both passively and explicitly. That really hit home with me. The naming of it. The conscious effort to say no to stuff like that. The more we do stuff like that, the more the misogynistic (racist/discriminatory against disabled, etc) lyrics sound off.
I try to do this with the word "retard." I tell people that it offends me and try to educate them.
There probably aren't many men who shouldn't examine our own sins of commission and omission.
Women on my twitter tl is overall funnier than the men. It's much rarer for the women to be 90 or 00 jokes though, probably general pattern.
I think I like female standups better (because I'm a feminist). The best standups I know of that are younger than me are mostly women.
I cannot abide 99% of standup, and 79% of sketch is terrible.
One of the super great things about the improv community in Austin (and most places) is that no one puts up with overtly sexist, racist, or homophobic bullshit. That's not to say there aren't a whole bunch of troupes of five marginally talented white guys or that some men don't automatically endow women as mothers or girlfriends & etc. But all of the theaters/schools are pro-active about establishing boundaries and at least 4 of the 5 have barred men who were sexually harassing women on or off stage.
I was in a class once when a white improviser started using an "Asian" accent because the scene was set in Thailand. The teacher did a beautiful job of shutting him down immediately and firmly but without malice. (The guy was just young and stupid and thought he was playing a character, not making fun of anyone.)
100: That's how you should do a podcast! I feel like pro comedians don't produce the funniest podcasts, maybe it's just the guys
Does it seem plausible that what Franken actually did is way milder than she remembers? Otherwise just leave off the part where you say you remember things differently. It's a "trying to save my career" apology
if he really doesn't remember it at all, fair enough, he's not obligated to falsely confess, but it's suspiciously self-serving that he doesn't remember the thing there isn't evidence of
But he doesn't say he doesn't remember it at all, he says that's not how he remembers it (it's ambiguous, I guess, in the second statement but quite clear in the first). And not saying how he remembers it strikes me as potentially playing games. On the one hand, he might have passed over his version of the story to focus on the message of listening to/believing women who come forward. On the other, biding your time like that seems like what you'd want to do if you knew something bad enough occurred that near-contemporaneous corroborating accounts or whatever might emerge. Waiting for an ethics investigation would be a pretty good way of determining exactly how much you need to fess up to.
Hey, Jones leads Moore y 8 points in a new poll.
89: What specifically about "I want to live on the moon"? Weirdly my context for that song was my ex-girlfriend playing it explain why she broke up with me.
Er, missing don't.
I would guess that until today Franken has been remembering it as a bunch of show business pals horsing around and having fun like on SNL, and like many in the business he doesn't want to believe not everyone is comfortable/pals with everyone else, and like so many of us men he has no concept whatsoever of how despite being a 5'6" nerdy fellow he might be physically intimidating to women.
He (my friend) now writes for Samantha Bee and says it's a really great place to work.
I didn't think much of that show when it first aired, and haven't watched it regularly, but I caught it last night and thought it was really good. Which makes me happy because I was rooting for her.
112 sounds extremely likely, but also angers me. I resent how selective it is.
'Why, we were just horsing around, us show business people, the way we do. That's why, in my random horsing around with other entertainers, I also forced my tongue into the mouth of several people that aren't of the type I am attracted to, because it is all completely random, among us comedians. Power and sexism aren't a factor at all; who gets kissed during the horse play is pure chance!'
115 also how my drama friends in high school behaved
Except they actually did make out with everyone, regardless of gender.
81: well, yeah. That was my finger typing clumsily on my iPhone. Just substitute the 0 that's right next to 9 on the screen and you'll know what I meant.
But they probably didn't make out with people they weren't attracted to, as would happen if horsing around were dictated by chance.
118 Who's to say? Drama Kids are an unfathomable lot
if Franken did this once, it was a very shitty thing to do but not a hanging offense. If he had a habit of doing this sort of thing, it's likely to become apparent in the coming days.
Am I crazy, or does that picture look like he's pretty much holding his hands above her boobs, not really touching her (or touching her super lightly with just the tios kf his fingers). The kiss thing is icky and sad, and the picture is childish/ poor judgment, but I am not seeing "groping." Am I dumb? Have I just seen this so many times I don't think anything of it?
Yeah I was thinking about 115. Definitely one of my high school friends surprise French-kissed (instead of stage-kissed) his costar during a show. I don't remember her feeling put out, but I've been wondering today.
Yeah, it looks more like miming groping than actually touching her, but taking a humiliatingly sexualized picture of an nonconsenting sleeping woman is bad enough for me.
124: OK, no disagreement that it's bad, just curious whether I was not seeing something that everyone else was.
If she accepts his apology and says he shouldn't step down, does that matter?
124 seems right to me.
Also, this doesn't in any way excuse Franken, but note that this is a right-wing talk radio host (KABC is a right-wing talk radio station) and also a Roger Stone job, which at least for me (discounting for generally fond priors for Franken) is at least a weight against the otherwise good heuristic of taking stories like this at face value. To be clear I'm referring only to the account of the "kiss," not the vileness of the picture which is obvious, and I'm not saying you shouldn't believe the account, just that there's a heuristic which should also weigh in the other direction.
Also agree with 124. Possibly also relevant on the actual groping vs pretend groping: she was wearing body armor. Still a nasty thing to do, but plausible that it was intended as stupid horseplay. Harder to see that with the kiss.
If she accepts his apology and says he shouldn't step down, does that matter?
Which she has, according to Kevin Drum.
re: 9
It was a different time, and in that time, there was complete widespread agreement that women suck - except that you need them for sex - but outside of that you can and should make fun of them a lot and get sex however you can. And also it wasn't that different a time. I think that's what's got me so riled up.
Even now, I come across this a lot. Not that women suck, in that sense, but I have friends who are basically homosocial. They love their wives, they talk about them in positive terms, they do things with them, but when they are out with 'men' they don't want any women around.
I was seen as mildly suspect for years, because when we went out drinking, my wife would come with me. As we get older, I'm less judgemental about some of those guys, because some of them became parents a long time ago, and I realise that a lot of this is kind of reified patterns of behaviour that come from one parent going out drinking while the other looks after the kids, and those nights alternating (so, typically among my circle of friends, the guys go out mid-week or on a Friday, and the women go out Saturdays).
But that core homosocial thing is still so much a thing.*
* I've heard other people joke about this same phenomena, but, as a teenager, I got accused more than once of being gay because I liked and hung out with women.
...but when they are out with 'men' they don't want any women around.
Let me be the first to suggest deer hunting, tractor pulls, and Steven Segal movies.
Watching Sunderland football games in skeevy Irish bars in west London. It's basically the same.
Except you spelled all the proper nouns right.
Does this mean you're a sunderland fan you poor bastard
122 etc i suppose frankens behavior isn't quite at the level where you can assume its the tip of the iceberg. But i think it would be a boon for women and for US politics if he had to resign
122 etc i suppose frankens behavior isn't quite at the level where you can assume its the tip of the iceberg. But i think it would be a boon for women and for US politics if he had to resign
130 is actually part of the big problem I've had socializing after becoming a parent. When Lee and I moved to our old neighborhood, there was apparently a lot of conversation among our friends in the neighborhood about which of us could be invited to the dads' or moms' nights and because there wasn't consensus neither of us got invitations. Because I care about not going where I'm not welcome, I never pushed.
re: 134
God no. But two others in that group are. The rest of the group, including me, are one of Arsenal, Tottenham, or Liverpool. No Man U or Chelsea fans. I don't know if that's design or coincidence.
137: In Ohio, it's tractor pulls for all.
138: Being an Arsenal fan must be like having a tooth pulled over the course of ten years. And Liverpool isn't much better. Of course I can't talk; I support Blackburn.
I am enthused about that which I support.
139: See why I won't live on that side of the river?
But i think it would be a boon for women and for US politics if he had to resign
Well yeah, except that it would be pretty much disastrous for US politics if he had to resign. In terms of the makeup of the US Senate, I mean. Because nothing that gives even more power to the GOP can ever be a boon for women, I'm pretty sure.
And so we are left with the need to compromise, with some shitty, compromised men to represent us, in order to fend off the potential power of some even shittier, even more compromised men, as usual...
Eh, I hate every thing about this. I hate everyone and everything that has anything to do with this. But you won't hear me joining the chorus calling for Franken's resignation. Because the Dems cannot afford to lose a seat like that, but yeah, this is truly shitty...
If Franken resigns, the Democratic governor would appoint his replacement, who I'd betcha would be a woman. She'd then stand for election next year.
This all feels necessary and stupid at the same time.
So, I guess Roger Stone leaked this Franken thing last night? I don't even fucking know anymore.
144: This all feels necessary and stupid at the same time.
Yep. And in an environment where:
1) Our sexual abuser president chose to comment as follows (via tweet):
The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps? .....
2) Accusations against X are credible/not credible/not sure:
Harvey Weinstein:
Clinton voters: 81/3/15
Trump voters: 74/3/22
Bill Clinton:
Clinton voters: 53/11/36
Trump voters: 84/4/13
Bill O'Reilly:
Clinton voters: 76/3/21
Trump voters: 18/23/59
Donald Trump:
Clinton voters: 83/2/15
Trump voters: 6/52/42
I do believe that most Rs now give "motivated" answers to these kind of polls. (See also the number who said *more* likely to vote for Moore after allegations.
Hell of a day:
House Repubs pass their perverted tax bill (now with bonus private plane write-offs preserved) by a larger margin than I expected.
FCC votes to end ownership rules green-lighting Sinclair.
This fucking shit.
I think this* becomes weaponized by the right leading to Franken (and others, including some "unimportant" Rs) gone, Trump staying, and Moore Squeaking in (but maybe there will be Senator Keith Ellison to greet him ...). If we can get anywhere close to semi-fair elections in '18 and '20 many Rs probably get swept out.
*This being the fucked up gender climate in various halls of power and privilege.
Maybe too freaking negative. Get some sleep and see what new horrors tomorrow brings.
13.last
The same way you recover from losing a leg, roughly.
I think Franken has such unusual talents for blending comedy in his interactions and insults that it would be a big loss to replace him with someone who votes identically to him. Everything is charisma these days.
Of course I can't talk; I support Blackburn.
Marsha Marsha Marsha?
I saw that Franken has had way closer elections than the other senator or the governor, so he can't be that great I guess?
Franken did seem to be talented at nailing Sessions to the wall. But I'm happy to follow the consensus opinion of Democratic women on what should happen to him: stay, go or promise not to run again.
153: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me."
Speaking of Democratic senators in states with Democratic governors, can we get Menendez to go away as soon as Christie does?
153: Don't count the 2008 election against Norm Coleman. Coleman was the incumbent, and it was just generally a nasty weird thing with a tense recount. His 2014 election is presumably going to be more typical, which had a larger margin than Governor Dayton's reelection that same year.
I'd also be reluctant to compare the 2014 midterms to Klobuchar's impressive showing in 2012; the Obama 2012 bump was smaller than '08 but still real.
147
I do believe that most Rs now give "motivated" answers to these kind of polls.
To lots of polls. (I could have sworn I posted this about an hour ago, but I don't see it. Apologies if it double-posts.)
I'm not sure what "that great" is supposed to mean in 153. That he's not effective? That he's not a reliable vote on the left side of the Dam caucus?
If it just means that he's not a dead cinch lock to hold the seat until death, no matter the climate... first of all, 157, and second of all, if he is an effective Senator and reliable left vote, then I don't fucking care. Lieberman was, tragically, unbeatable in CT, and it cost us the public option.
If I thought that Al preemptively resigning would set a reliable precedent, then I'd be OK wth it*. But the fuck it would: by that logic, Trump would resign (HA!), as would half the Republican caucus. Since we know that won't happen, this is just another desperate liberal effort to play fair in a life and death game where the other side never ever will.
*although with the facts at hand, I think it's not actually called for
I do believe that most Rs now give "motivated" answers to these kind of polls. (See also the number who said *more* likely to vote for Moore after allegations.
Pundits going on about these "shocking" poll results are simply smug and oblivious. This is not an academic survey with controls that detect when people are lying or giving random answers and then drop the data, it's just a summary of all the results to a dumb poll. Imagine for one second you are actually being polled. What you will do is, you will give the answer that shows support for the things you support. You have no obligation to help out the person who interrupted your day to ask questions. The more trivial the questions, and the more the topic of the survey is unrelated to your actual life (and "Do you believe X happened?" is both trivial and unrelated to anyone's life), the more this happens.
161: Then it's striking that Democrats are more considerate to pollsters and value their time less, I guess? I mean, I know lots of polls give lots of weird results. But polls about political hot topics these days are weird in a consistent way.
I think part of the issue is that plenty of people who do not care enough to be strongly motivated are Democrats where as everybody who will say they are a Republican these days (or admit they voted for Trump) is in the tank for Trump.
I think 163 is correct. If you are a Republican but you don't like Trump you have temporarily stopped identifying as a Republican in these surveys.
Likewise the polls about "Do you regret voting for X?" with shock that nobody regrets their obviously wrong choice. Look, if I voted for Trump and now I regret it, I don't want to relive that moment with a pollster. I no longer think of myself as a Trump person and I probably won't tell you who I voted for.
I remember similar poll results after the Access Hollywood tape came out. A lot of "how can Trump survive this?" from the press while a not insignificant percent of Republicans said they'd support Trump even more. And then the tape became just another ho-hum short-term campaign news cycle story, not much more consequential than a politician making a gaffe in a meeting with donors where they thought they weren't being recorded.
In a two party system as long as both candidates stay in the race they can do pretty much anything because if it was so bad, why are they still running? Otherwise the continued campaign of the candidate who allegedly (the allegations sometimes coming from himself) did things that "some consider immoral/illegal" (to put it in journalism's preferred hedge phrasing) would be a sign of a rotting system where one party literally will justify anything to get and keep power and that can't be true because their supporters are just so darned sympathetic and polite when they're not at rallies chanting slogans about jailing their political opponents.
What JRoth says in 160.
Because if Franken has to resign, the precedent won't be "Here, finally, is a reckoning with, a moral accounting of, male perfidy and misbehaviour, all of which is long overdue..." Ah no, nope, not at all. The GOP will continue to elect snake oil salesmen to high public office, some of whom also happen to be creepy sexual predators, some of them outright child molesters, fer Christ's sake! and all under cover of their deeply weird version of "Christianity," and the precedent will be, "Well, here's a new way to make the Dems roll over and play dead. Let's roll! and see how far we can take this..."
166: Yeah, and the next Dem who gets caught for something a little bit worse than Franken might be in a state with a Republican governor. If you've established the precedent that "Anything Franken did or worse must be punished by resignation or expulsion," that would be a really uncomfortable situation to be in (assuming it isn't so much worse that we would say "Damn the consequences, this person has got to go."). OTOH, if Franken decides on his own to resign for his own reasons, that doesn't necessarily set a precedent.
The Hollywood Access tape really was a ho-hum short-term campaign news cycle story, wasn't it? I think it had less effect on the campaign than Romney's 47% remark in 2012.
Lena Dunham really was born with her foot in her mouth, wasn't she? What an awful, awful person.
This could be a game for people who haven't read the news yet. "No more masturbating to or public masturbating."
I was just thinking: the Tone Police should have squad cars in a contrasting beige-and-taupe color scheme.
153 is just wrong, I think I read something on twitter and didn't double check
Franken is a liability for the democrats. Trying to rationalize not taking moral stands and drawing lines in the sand have been disastrous for the democrats and for the left all over the world.
Somewhat to the OP, great essay on the fascist roots of stand-up comedy.
175: Very interesting. Saying stand-up has fascist roots is an exaggeration though. The article says one comic in the 1930s was also a fascist, that he was highly influential as a comedian, but that his political views were rare and despised in the business. Also that his career was eventually strangled by his malice, which is pleasing.
That is a good read. And so much more relatable to me than it would have been two years ago.
A lot of his issues has become cliches though.
Standup punches down to a greater extent than other forms of comedy, and he might plausibly have something to do it that. Probably the double acts did nagging wife jokes and racial humor before him though
Fascinating read. I think I had heard before that Bob Hope patterned his act on Fay's, but never looked up Fay. Also interesting that there was a "Laura Ingalls" who was a Nazi. My first thought was "Is this Laura Ingalls Wilder?" ("Little House on the Prairie," etc.) Turns out not. Not another Dr. Seuss moment, at least.
No wonder why I could never stand Bob Hope.
Pretty good take from Rebecca Traister again. This time on the Bill Maher show (trigger warning, start of video is when Traister starts talking, but whole discussion is pretty good, starts a few minutes earlier with Chelsea Handler). She decries that the conversation seems to always immediately go to the "punishment," says it an Easy way out.
180, 181: Yep, Bob Hope would've killed in the Lindbergh administration.
Off topic etiquette question: My brother and his girlfriend just let me know they are getting married. Who is supposed to approve the bride as potential match, me as the eldest male in the family or my sister as she has mom's power of attorney?
Plebiscite of the 'tariat, overseen by the OAS.
Also, congratulations to your brother.
Let's not jump the gun. If she's a Methodist, we need to confirm that she's Missouri Synod, not Wisconsin.
He's like 107 in first-marriage years.
Check his parents for any recessive genes. (That was my dad's dating advice when I went to college.)
I have half his parents' genes. I'm not sure i want to know.
Wow, you could totally be siblings.
As long as they aren't siblings, I don't think it will cause any genetic problems.
185 should do it.
Congratulations to your brother.
Also, NMM2 Charles Manson.
Now the best-known living person trying to start a race war is Bannon.
184: She was supposed to ask for your permission before she asked. You have no choice, but to call the whole thing off
NMM2 Al Franken's political career. He's done.
Another story broke, or are you just commenting on the first one? I suppose I could google.
Yeah, the latest accusation is completely convincing. I'm sure grabbing a stranger's ass is great and all, but it can't be that thrilling. Some of these guys never get over having been the dork, I think.
197: Another harassment claim came out today. 196 is right, he might have weathered a single incident but now I suspect he's done.
I'm sure grabbing a stranger's ass is great and all, but it can't be that thrilling.
This is what I keep coming back to. It ruins the stranger's day, and adds to making them jumpy and nervous about men in general, and for what? Asshole. But if he resigns, at least he'll be replaced by a Democrat.
and for what? Asshole.
Whoa there, he just gently cupped her glute.
Maybe it's like Prince Charming, but with butts instead of slippers?
Meanwhile, Tarantino is ditching the Weinsteins (Sony has since won). That was probably for business reasons, but Harvey's shit maybe put in the nail, and means the Weinstein Company is likely done.
205 Probably not the right time for a Tarantino Manson movie.
And Glenn Thrush.
That and Drudge and hipsters in general are why I can never see my way to wearing a hat in public.
I think this is a sea change, if nothing else it should put the fear in younger generations of young men that their career will be destroyed if they treat women like dirt.
206: I don't know. Django and Hateful Eight were fucked up, but I think not without virtue. Also it seems the Manson stuff will actually be in the background, not the main focus.
Sad, sad, sad. Not surprised a bit by Thrush.
This is good: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men/
I liked 212,too.
The grabbing during a photo is so gross. I've never had it happen, but it's just such a nasty trick. A young woman, excited to meet a celebrity, and then there's a photo where she's being grabbed and is smiling through it and doesn't get to look back fondly at the cool photo of her and Mr. X. What is wrong with these men?
212 lost me when it said Annie Hall was better than Caddyshack.
OT: Speaking of things being associated with your name*, I just realized that one of my colleagues has a colleague who has never interacted with me at all. Instead of including me on the emails, she has used the email address another (more prominent) person who shares my name. I think somebody told her to cc me and she just googled the name, used the first hit, and confused people on three continents.
* In the other thread, which I'm staying out of because it is more actively on topic.
In three oceans, one would have thought.
Not everybody on those three continents, but I'm pretty sure nobody was in the ocean.
The rigs can go really far out these days.