Tag: Kevin Drum

Right in the eggs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Cool with a side of clouds.

Whew. Looks like I picked a good week to go on a news fast. These pendejos are pitching fastballs. At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.

My news fast coincided with a cold snap that kept me off the bike. I don’t object to cycling in the 30s if the sun’s out, but when Tōnatiuh abdicates in favor of Ehecatl, it’s time to go for a run.

Thing is, I’m not a runner. Not really. A runner certainly wouldn’t call me one. Especially if s/he’d caught me at it.

I can pretend for 45 minutes but that’s about it. And that doesn’t burn a lot of daylight for a fella trying to avoid the doomscrolling.

Still, I managed. For about four days. Who can avert his or her eyes while passing a domestic disturbance in daylight or an unshaded window at night? This is like driving past a five-car crash without checking the gutters for rolling heads.

So I eased back in, slowly. A little Kevin Drum. Then a bit of Charlie Pierce. This is akin to reading the police report, if Joseph Wambaugh wrote it. The Atlantic, for a soupçon of button-down viewing with alarm.

Finally, I hit the hard stuff. The New York Times. Holy shit, etc.

I hope the rubes who elected this bozo are enjoying the shitshow. Looks like it’ll be a good long while before he gets those egg prices down.

Write what you no, no, no, no, no

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

Miss Mia Sopaipilla keeps an eye out for terrorist hummingbirds.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla, Herself, and I have not been watching the Democratic National Convention.

If you know you’re going in for a colonoscopy, do you really need a preview of coming attractions? Can’t we skip the short subjects and move on to the feature?

“Well, the good news is, we think we’ve located your head.”

I know, I know — there have been a couple zingers suitable for endless repetition, the best so far coming from Ms. Obama. And MoJo’s Kevin Drum wonders whether the virtual convention might replace the MeatWorld model, which was basically just a cumbersome, volatile, prime-time campaign ad anyway.

The pace is livelier than live conventions; more people get to speak since their segments can be more tightly controlled; and in an era of media sophistication I’ll bet viewers like it better. They know perfectly well how it’s being put together and they don’t mind.

Maybe so. But I think that in “normal” times people still like to gather in their little groups and rub elbows, surreptitiously trading greenbacks and gossip. Hell, sometimes even I miss Interbike, if only because it got me out of the fucking house.

‘NBC will not be able to predict the winner. …’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Eternal vigilance, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

After the briefest of discussions …

“You wanna watch the debate?”

“Nah. You?”

“Nah.”

… we decided against encouraging further silliness from NBC and the Democratic National Committee.

Finding some way to watch would have been a pain in the ass — we don’t have cable, and can’t get much of anything over the air without a rooftop antenna — and then there would have been the actual watching, which, ick.

Charlie Pierce found Tim Ryan full of the bafflegab, Elizabeth Warren on her game, Beto O’Rourke so light of weight that he “spent the evening looking as though he had to be tied down to keep from floating out the door,” and Julián Castro “the one Texan who knew what he was talking about.”

Kevin Drum found Beto “talking in platitudes,” Castro “clear and well-briefed,” Warren “OK for now,” and John Delaney “very annoying.” He also found the general unwillingness to discuss climate change an indication that the candidates “were afraid of saying something that will be interpreted as asking people to make an actual sacrifice.”

Mother Times and the WaPo (that would be a great band name, no?) are awash in the usual morning-after hooey about “divisions among Democrats,” and who “won” and who “lost,” if that’s your idea of a good time.

Meanwhile, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) remains on the alert. He remains convinced that the Revolution will not be televised.

Interbike 2018: Relax

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

Just a little pinprick.

The latest iteration of the Gathering of the Tribes is in the rear-view mirror.

Was it a success? I have no idea. We’ll have to wait for the numbers, which may prove elusive.

Yes, it’s that time of year again.

One astute observer who is not me does not recall seeing any attendance figures from last year’s Interbike, the Last Roundup in Sin City, and thus who knows? Just as in real life, we may have to judge based on anecdotal evidence instead of cold, hard facts.

Speaking of anecdotal evidence, real life, and cold, hard facts, both Charlie Pierce and Kevin Drum are goggle-eyed at the latest plot twist in “The Adventures of Brett Kavanaugh, Boy Wonder.”

If this were real real life instead of a cheapjack “Justice League” porno knockoff, Kavanaugh’s nomination would be as dead as John Holmes. But the Senate is all Jokers and no Batmen.

Meanwhile, a tip of the Rivendell cycling cap to Darren Sherkat, who was the first and only commenter to publicly recognize the lyrics from Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” which I was using for headlines on this year’s Interbike posts. Hope you enjoyed ’em.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.