Friday, January 03, 2014

ONE'S GOOD; TWO'LL GET YOU OFF.

I guess I don't have to tell you about David Brooks' stay-in-school-don't-do-drugs column, and assume most of you are of the same mind about it. However, let us spare a moment for an outlier or two -- like former National Review drone David Freddoso, writing at Conservative Intelligence Briefing. which seems to be some kind of Young Fogey clubroom reeking of chrism and nocturnal emissions. So what'll it be, young gents -- Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, or --
What would Aquinas say about legalizing weed?
No, come back -- well, actually, we can't blame you for running. Freddoso's okay with legal weed, unlike stupid Big Gummint liberals:
You wouldn’t know it from the way some of our politicians talk and legislate, but government doesn’t exist for the sake of making us all the best possible competition for China, or to press us single-mindedly toward whatever it deems to be the moral pinnacle at any particular moment (ahem).
Anyone who's totalitarian enough to want universal health care will be a drag about weed, amiright? Oh, and if any wingnuts out there think this Freddoso fellow is pushing the wrong kind of libertarianism, don't worry:
Brooks’ smaller error, I believe, is his assertion that the states legalizing pot are “encouraging” its use. I’m not necessarily saying they made the right choice, but I don’t think this follows. This isn’t like gay marriage...
Both Brooks and Freddoso to be "encouraged" into lockers immediately.

UPDATE. Oh Jesus, I forgot Kathryn J. Lopez:
I’d probably be less dismayed by the Colorado move if we were falling over modern-day Rembrandts.

Not unrelatedly, I just got done reading Instapundit Glenn Reynolds’ new book, The New School...
Don't bother, guys, the link doesn't make it any clearer. Nice try, K-Lo, but Buñuel remains my favorite Catholic surrealist.

123 comments:

  1. Gromet4:09 PM

    Weed was legal in Aquinas's day. And there's no record of him writing in support of banning it -- boom, now we know old Aqy was chill.

    Ohhhh but there was also no health insurance, and Aquinas never wrote saying there should be some, did he? So now we know he would oppose the ACA.

    Later, you guys. I'm going to spend the rest of today close-reading Summa Theologiae to get his opinions on Pajama Boy, immigrants, and the failed de Blasio Administration.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mooser4:11 PM

    Did I ever tell you about the time St. Thomas Aquinas met Erasmus, the humanist, in a small village in Germany?

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  3. Chairman Pao4:14 PM

    'I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases, feeling like a total loser. It is still one of those embarrassing memories that pop up unbidden at 4 in the morning.'


    The dark night of the Brooksian soul, ladies and germs. I was hoping for more circus bears on miniature bicycles.

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  4. I eagerly await Bobo's admonitory column regarding masturbation, and that one time he and his friends engaged in a circle jerk (he didn't come) but then moved on to higher callings.

    Meanwhile, you just knew someone would, uh, fly with this and admit to toking with the Brookster.

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  5. TGuerrant4:23 PM

    He's one of those rare people I think should do more drugs, not less.

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  6. edroso4:26 PM

    "The best campaign dinners are no campaign dinners..."

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  7. FMguru4:34 PM

    That crack on K-Lo seems a little unfair...to surrealists. They had a real artistic agenda behind their work, trying to capture the feel and imagery of dreams in oils or sculpture, or pointedly commenting on the absurdity of modern life. Lopez is just babbling magical-thinking word salad because she doesn't know any better.

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  8. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:39 PM

    Buñuel remains my favorite Catholic surrealist.

    Richard Petty was a big fan, too, I hear...

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  9. Not sorry4:45 PM

    Something something find a stranger in the Alps?

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  10. Tony Prost4:47 PM

    I think all the modern day Rembrandts are all ready smoking pot.

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  11. Tony Prost4:47 PM

    Did they walk into a bar?

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  12. satch4:48 PM

    "What would Aquinas say about legalizing weed?"


    Jeez, I dunno... something like "Dude, you gonna eat those nachos?"

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  13. You're out of your element, Donny...

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  14. Chairman Pao4:53 PM

    Informal poll.


    In an editorial in which he laments the impact of marijuana on intelligence, among other attributes, Brooks employs a cautionary "I think" six times. Does this mean that Brooks:


    a) was on deadline?
    b) was lazy?
    c) was taking the piss to those dirty, filthy hippies?
    d) OMG HE WAS SO STONED WHEN HE WROTE IT?

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  15. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:54 PM

    I guess I don't have to tell you about David Brooks' stay-in-the-pool-don't-do-fish video

    Wally is smarter than Bobo. And he has never, ever, been near an Applebee's salad bar...

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  16. He said, 'hey, smells like sheep in here!"?

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  17. It is still one of those embarrassing memories that pop up unbidden at 4 in the morning.
    "So I ordered Pizza Pit. Extra cheese and Reeses Pieces. Tried for a booty call from KLo, but wasn't stoned 'nuff."

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  18. coozledad5:00 PM

    i doubt anything else still pops up unbidden for Bobo.

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  19. i have stared at the lopez post for the last ten minutes, and it is a complete and utter mystery to me what the references and links to modern-day rembrandts are all about; they lead to a couple of her own posts, so it's clear that she knows what they're all about, and so i guess that's the point. maybe christmas carols? i don't know.

    though there is a gem buried in one of her links, "the nativity and our lives" - apparently in those speeches inre capitalism, what pope francis was referring to wasn't really the poor and downtrodden, but that really just means everybody, generally, in fact the broadest sense possible, so don't sweat it guys, k?. catholicism isn't about politics, unless its my kind of politics.

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  20. M. Krebs5:24 PM

    I was hoping for more circus bears on miniature bicycles.


    And hookers wearing domino masks.

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  21. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person5:39 PM

    What would Aquinas say about legalizing weed?

    Well, if John Allegro was right, he'd probably sneer at a mere joint. 'Shrooms, man, 'shrooms...

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  22. d) 1. He got stoned with Ruth Marcus, and they watched Reefer Madness together.

    http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn3/ThelmaTodd/reefertumblr12_zps103cce77.gif
    ~

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  23. smut clyde5:56 PM

    Not to mention employing "subtly" twice, in successive sentences, to describe the current system of "discouragement through warrantless searches, arbitrary arrest, property seizure, imprisonment and job loss".

    Perhaps an element of 'protest too much'.

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  24. mgmonklewis5:58 PM

    That's just the way it is, baby.
    http://youtu.be/jmjQVoHrXe0

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  25. smut clyde5:58 PM

    "Dude, you gonna eat those nachos?"
    From what I recall of physical descriptions of Aquinas, he did not need the whacky backy to give him the munchies.

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  26. FDRliberal5:59 PM

    Speaking of drugs, K-Lo's poetic dadaist reference to "falling over modern day Rembrandts" makes me think she may have been licking some funny paper prior to posting.


    "Newspaper taxis appear on the shore..."

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  27. Monkeyfister6:09 PM

    Well, whether Bobo and KLo believe it moral or not, In two days, Colorado marijuana sales topped $100 Million, meaning the State hauled in $25 Million in Tax Revenue in TWO DAYS (15% Excise/10% Sales Tax). I expect it to level off to more like $5-10 Million per day by year's end. With free revenue like that, it won't take long for a Majority of states to Legalize. The Feds will have no choice but to completely fold within six years.

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  28. tedmills6:57 PM

    My favorite part is his final line: "Paul Krugman is off today." So full of pathos.

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  29. M. Krebs7:04 PM

    Tax the hippies! Finally we'll have free health care and SUPERTRAINs.

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  30. Ellis_Weiner7:41 PM

    It's satire. He must have added the cautionary alert after everyone took it at face value.

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  31. M. Krebs7:44 PM

    Oh great. Thanks a lot. I wasn't going to do it, but now I've gone and read Brooks's stupid fucking column. Jesus F. Christ. And the saddest thing is that there must be a nonzero number of people who read this shit and actually think it's intelligent or something. I mean, there must be, right?

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  32. Whoever colorized that movie made some poor decisions along the way.

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  33. Well as we all know, there were no illicit drugs back in Rembrandt's day.

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  34. Hot Jazz Murder Music8:01 PM

    This is what you get when you leave a stranger in the grass!

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  35. Mooser8:07 PM

    I thought splendor is what we are after. In our grass, I mean.

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  36. billcinsd8:18 PM

    aren't the references about the supposed creative enhancement of using drugs?

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  37. MikeJ8:25 PM

    Probably high when they did it.

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  38. Magatha8:27 PM

    "There will be no Thomas Aquinas at this table.... Keep your theology of providence to yourself, frat boy." Now, who's gonna buy me a beer?

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  39. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:30 PM

    Charles Pierce sayeth:
    Brooks is far more full of himself than Marcus is -- There is more of
    David Brooks in David Brooks than there is anywhere else in the world.


    And you cain't hardly argue with that...

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  40. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:33 PM

    Over a million a week that they have to lay out next to nothing for? It'll spread like algae in a nice warm Petri dish...

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  41. MikeJ8:47 PM

    How was I to know there was going to be a pot thread immediately after I use Hits from the Bong translated into Greek in the last thread? Not cool.

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  42. Barking seals would be more appropriate I would say

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  43. Jeffrey_Kramer9:15 PM

    I once read a David Brooks column and lost all will to life. Fortunately, it had driven me into a depression so deep I couldn't summon the will to walk across the room to get my gun. I suppose this could used to support either the pro- or anti-"legalize David Brooks columns" case.

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  44. Jeffrey_Kramer9:24 PM

    I assumed the unarticulated argument was something like "the Dutch have legalized it, Rembrandt was Dutch, so legalization should give you more Rembrandt, but they didn't get any more Rembrandts, even in Dutchia, so legalization isn't good for anything." Which is still an inarticulate argument, but a little more articulated.

    Sorry, I'm still a little high.

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  45. Freddoso says the state is actually being asked to sanction something with marriage equality - I assume because people have to get licenses to marry. But the Colorado dispensaries have to get a license to operate as well. The long lines at the stores were due mainly to most of the applications not being approved in time for others to be open. So how is one a state sanction and the other not?
    Forget about it, Nobles. It's CIB-atown.

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  46. Rugosa10:34 PM

    There's a couple of things that come to mind re: Brooks and KLo.

    One: There's no biblical prohibition of intoxicants. Sure, some characters in the Old Testament acted dumb or were taken advantage of because of drunkeness (I don't recall whose daughters got him drunk so they could fuck him and, hopefully, bear sons so they would have some support), but there's no blanket prohibition.

    Two: In the New T, Jesus's first miracle was turning water into wine so the
    wedding party could continue. With the good stuff, too. So, far from prohibition, there is open approval.

    MJ, LSD, Ecstasy, opioids, etc., aren't mentioned but the general idea of changing your mood with chemicals is not at all condemned.

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  47. 'I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases, feeling like a total loser.'

    Finally, David Brooks reveals his writing process. No wonder he was so qualified to teach that course on humility.

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  48. redoubtagain11:40 PM

    "I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases,
    feeling like a total loser. It is still one of those embarrassing
    memories that pop up unbidden at 4 in the morning."

    "Yeah, man, Newt's comin' down the stairs again. Send me a pound of whatever he's smokin'."

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  49. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:41 PM

    In those days, drinking wine--usually pretty weak, and maybe watered even further--was, literally, "to your health", sanitation and water quality being what they were.

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  50. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:45 PM

    What, no Austin Lounge Lizards fans around here?

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  51. (I don't recall whose daughters got him drunk so they could fuck him


    That would be Lot, previously the only virtuous man living in Sodom, which was when he offered those same daughters to the menacing mob outside his house. The laws of hospitality really were a big deal.

    In the New T, Jesus's first miracle was turning water into wine so the wedding party could continue.

    Nuh-uh. According to fundamentalist Baptists, it was actually unfermented grape juice. Seriously. This might be worth remembering the next time you're around a talibornagain when they start blabbering about how the KJV Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God.

    With the good stuff, too.

    Nuh-uh. Unless you mean "good unfermented grape juice." The only reason there was so much praise for it was because everyone was already too disgustingly drunk to realize it wasn't alcoholic. Seriously. As to why Jesus and his family were at a wedding full of drunkards, or why he made such slobs the beneficiaries of his first official miracle, that might be worth asking the next time you're around a talibornagin when they start blabbering about ... pretty much anything, really.

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  52. DocAmazing11:54 PM

    She's Vermeerly confused.

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  53. Brooks’ smaller error, I believe, is his assertion that the states
    legalizing pot are “encouraging” its use. I’m not necessarily saying
    they made the right choice, but I don’t think this follows. This isn’t
    like gay marriage...


    ...the legalization of which does encourage it? I mean, I suppose gay couples who haven't previously been able to legally marry might be encouraged, but I suspect that's not your angle. So, David, I hope you don't mind, but I'm gonna have to add you to the list of "Conservatives who condemn homosexuality because of its allure."

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  54. ... some kind of Young Fogey clubroom reeking of chrism and nocturnal emissions.


    [Fingertips kisses]

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  55. DocAmazing12:01 AM

    There's no biblical prohibition of intoxicants.

    If you've read the Book of Revelations, you might be forgiven for thinking intoxicants were mandatory.

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  56. JennOfArk12:14 AM

    I don’t have any problem with somebody who gets high from time to time, but I guess, on the whole, I think being stoned is not a particularly uplifting form of pleasure and should be discouraged more than encouraged.

    We need a nanny state to tell us not to smoke weed. And to confiscate all our shit and throw us in jail if we do.

    As prices drop and legal fears go away, usage is bound to increase. This is simple economics,

    Yes, it certainly is simple. It's also based on an economic theory that has been proven over the past 30 years to be not true. If we know anything from this disastrous experiment, it's that supply does not drive demand. People who want to smoke weed will buy it, and they will only buy as much as they use. Full stop. How to prove? There's a billion Duck Dynasty themed bullshit items out there, and I haven't bought a single one.

    ...they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be.



    Unless the sort of person we want to be is a stoner.

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  57. You know how in movies they use weak tea to stand in for colored liquors? Well, back in the black & white days, they found that regular cigarette smoke tended to lack the desired density and contrast. So they often laced the cigarettes with green or blue anthraquinone dyes like those used in skywriting, only with extra sodium bicarbonate to lower the burning temperature. And presto! Thicker smoke that showed up better against the background when dramatic-looking smoking was called for. It's not like anyone could tell in a black & white film. Yet another reason why colorizers shouldn't bother.

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  58. Spaghetti Lee12:27 AM

    Oh, David. Poor, poor David. You know all the street preachers, televangelists, and motivational speakers whose whole shtick is that they were once led down the path of sin and debauchery, but they were saved, and if they were saved anyone can be...then you listen a little longer and start figuring out that the most debauched they've ever been is wearing brown socks with black shoes? David Brooks is that, taken to its logical conclusion. They probably all hate him for reaching the topmost niche before they did.

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  59. If you were really a doctor of theology, you'd know it's "Book of Revelation." "The Revelation of Saint John the Divine" is also acceptable, and is a better springboard for jokes.



    Such bombastic pedantry aside for the moment, yeah, I'll have some of what John of Patmos is having.



    "I turned to see who spoke to me, and saw a figure on the beach with glowing feet like brass in a furnace, and in his right hand seven stars, and a sharp sword poking out of his mouth. I found out the 'sharp' part when I turned. "Jesus Christ!" I shouted, falling at his feet. He said 'Indeed it is, but fear not,' and laid his right hand upon me ... the one with the stars in it. 'Jesus!' I cried out. 'Yes, yes, we've already established that,' the figure replied testily. 'Now eat some more of those mushrooms; we've got a lot of ground to cover.'"

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  60. Gabriel Ratchet12:35 AM

    Or, to quote Jackie Brown:
    "You know you smoke too much of that shit, that shit gonna rob you of your own ambition."
    "Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV..."

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  61. Psalm 139:14


    "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. The hand alone is a marvel, as I have gazed upon it these many hours with great devotion."

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  62. MikeJ1:11 AM

    Having grown up a Baptist, I can tell you I never knew anyone who thought it was grape juice until years later. I did eventually meet people who thought it, but I had already left religion behind by that point. It's not a belief that is widely held among Baptists unless things have changed (and they may have.)


    However, it's a pretty easily refuted argument. 1) the greek used for what Jesus creates is the same word as the stuff that fucks you up and 2) Jesus tells people that when you've got a bottle of good stuff and a crate of plonk, drink the good stuff first while you can still tell the difference.

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  63. MikeJ1:12 AM

    Why do they call them fingers? Have you ever seen them fing?

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  64. It's not a belief that is widely held among Baptists unless things have changed (and they may have.)


    At the risk of sounding all Emo Philips, I assure you it's a longstanding doctrinal point of many Grace Baptists and a non-negligible fraction of Southern Baptists. (The latter did use to be a smaller fraction of the total, though, before the purges.) After all, if the Bible is full of acceptable wine drinking, and even Jesus imbibes, what's the religious justification for teetotalism?

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  65. Another Kiwi1:58 AM

    It was worse than eleventy Hitlers, I'll bet

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  66. PorlockJunior2:18 AM

    Not sure about that advice from Jesus. As I recall the story, it was the steward (master of the feast) who tasted the new wine, as was his job, and remarked that this was odd, because (as you say) most hosts would serve the good stuff first. An observation, not divine advice.



    It obviously follows from the steward's judgment that the stuff Jesus made was the best. Well, sure, do you expect half measures from the Messiah?


    And this detail cleverly refutes two fallacies, for which I give the author, whoever that may be, full credit. (Whom you find in the details depends on whether you follow Mies van der Rohe (who thought it was God) or Ronald Reagan. I know that's a hard choice to make. Or, of course, neither) .



    Anyway, there's the sleight of hand explanation, that Jesus just watered the stuff that was left in the barrel and passed it off as more wine. Nope, doesn't work, just rejecting the Bible story makes better sense.


    And there's the Baptist story about grape juice. Oops! They take the Bible seriously. This is gonna cause real trouble as soon as they start _thinking_ about the Bible.

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  67. Tehanu3:26 AM

    I forget the comedian whose routine goes, "I hate hanging with stoners. They're full of stupid ideas they want you to hear, like, 'Hey, man, what if we're all just atoms in God's toenail?' Cocaine users only have one idea: 'Say, what if we got more coke?'"

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  68. MikeJ4:04 AM

    Since the Baptists I knew weren't teetotalers they didn't need a justification. Of course everyone I knew danced too.

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  69. BadExampleMan5:59 AM

    Wasn't the main societal menace back then the Demon Bean, imported from swarthy Semites to pollute the precious bodily fluids of our Dutch Masters?

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  70. Derelict7:48 AM

    Which, really, is what conservative arguments against same-sex marriage come down to. For so many of them, they're apparently married to women only because they could not (at the time) marry a man. Now that it's legal to do so, their marriages are threatened by the siren singing of The Village People.

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  71. coozledad9:25 AM

    She's just fixating on one of her favorite old blacklight posters, and forgot who painted it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isenheim_Altarpiece

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  72. I actually read the KLo piece on Rembrandt,as much as one can read something which is like stream of unconscious associations cut from shreds of a black velvet painting of Jesus and the Holy Mother, glued back together with random pope quotes and mawky sentimentality about dead babies and the power of faith. I feel sticky and sick, like someone force fed me cotton candy.


    But I think the implication is, somehow, that in a world of extreme sentimental and artistic piety, exemplified by a Rembrandt and his painting of something something something, and St. Therese's parents, who suffered a lot but didn't complain, a little weed wouldn't matter. We could afford the occasional doper. But since the world isn't peopled with Rembrandts, we can't. Or something.


    At any rate Long form K'Lo is X times as bad as short form K'Lo (where X is the number of the paragraphs). She reads like a brain damaged child bride of christ with tourettes and a short attention span. There's a kind of superficial resemblance to Peggy Noonan's mystical, allusive, style but Noonan reads like a "just the facts, ma'am" style police report compared to K'Lo's meanderings. I don't think its because they aren't both crazy mystics. But K'Lo is definitely the dumb kid at the back of the classroom while little Peggy was always getting the A.

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  73. To paraphrase Yogi Bear, Brooks has a lot to be modest about.

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  74. reeking of chrism and nocturnal emissions

    Chrism and jism... chrism and jism...

    Damn, I can't help but hear this in Burl Ive's voice.

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  75. He was so high, he hallucinated an entire salad bar at Applebees.

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  76. "That said, I'm pretty sure there weren't any questions about how many angels can fit in a dimebag."


    I'd like to think that Aquinas's next question was: 'Bro... ya see that third nun from the left, top row of the choir? Yeah, the hot one. Ya think she'd go out with me?"

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  77. dstatton10:51 AM

    "I just got done reading..."



    What a stylist!

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  78. So THAT'S what killed Humphrey Bogart...

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  79. FlipYrWhig10:59 AM

    Is the Lopez line supposed to be "if we were falling-over (i.e. stumbling) modern-day Rembrandts," or "if we were falling over (i.e. in ways caused by) modern-day Rembrandts"? In the first case, we're Rembrandts. In the second, we're falling because of other people who are Rembrandts. Kind of totally different in implication. Fine display of editorial skills there, ain't it?

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  80. JennOfArk11:27 AM

    Dr Suess, Horton Hears a Who:


    "A person's a person, no matter how small."

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  81. RogerAiles11:33 AM

    She just really likes the theme from Friends.

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  82. RogerAiles11:33 AM

    No one can top the theme from Friends.

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  83. e.) He was drunk.

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  84. RogerAiles11:43 AM

    They're falling over modern-day Caravaggios at the Vatican.

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  85. StringOnAStick12:16 PM

    I suppose Brook's argument was also made by the alcohol prohibition dead enders, which might be why there seems to be a punditary prohibition on even alluding to some equivalence between alcohol and pot.

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  86. FlipYrWhig12:32 PM

    Or whitening toothpaste.

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  87. Jay B.12:52 PM

    I'd settle for night sweats about time he was tortured for amusement by his dom, that smarmy little prick.

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  88. Derelict1:08 PM

    Maybe. Or maybe it's the existence of multi-national corporations such as Seagrams that exist to sell booze (and thus buy lots of advertising and politicians). Pointing out that alcohol use is involved in most domestic violence incidents, contributes a large portion of our high fatalities, is hugely addictive, and destroys more families every day than gay marriage ever will is verboten.

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  89. Derelict1:12 PM

    And the illiteracy of K-Lo! Don't forget the illiteracy!


    Which is one of the things that amazes me about conservative writers (on the Web, at least): You'd think a BFOQ would be to, you know, be able to write complete sentences that are grammatically correct with no spelling errors.

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  90. Mooser1:12 PM

    Close.

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  91. Derelict1:15 PM

    And then woke up the next day wondering how his topiaries ended up with bite-marks.

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  92. Mooser1:21 PM

    Sodium bicarbonate has felled more than one talented actor. But then, so has dyspepsia. Lotta tough choices in this world.
    It reminds me of the time St. Thomas Aquinas and Erasmus met in a small village in Germany. Aquinas rushed forward to greet the great Humanist, but tripped over a carlessly placed Bratwurst and sprained his ankle. While a litter was being summoned (puppies help everything!) Erasmus never left the Scholastic's side, asking him "'Quinas, my man, are you comfortable? Are you comfortable?"
    To which St. Thomas replied: "Comfortable? Ach, I make a living."

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  93. Mooser1:27 PM

    Anyway, they eventually taped St. Thomas' ankle, and it was time to go. As the two men left each other, to possibly never meet again, Aquinas as Erasmus: "So which way you going, Quinas? Pinsk or Minsk?"

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  94. KatWillow2:23 PM

    Peggy told the teachers what they wanted to hear, KLo told them what she thought they needed to hear.

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  95. KatWillow2:30 PM

    Isn't "legal" pot intended to be medicinal rather than recreational?

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  96. My god thats good.

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  97. smut clyde3:07 PM

    But since the world isn't peopled with Rembrandts, we can't. Or something.


    I've heard that argument before. "The 16th century was *full* of great artists who were misunderstood and ridiculed by the philistines and smug bourgeoisie of their time. Why aren't there artists like that today, when all we have are a lot of talentless poseurs painting stuff my child could do?"

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  98. smut clyde3:14 PM

    I feel sticky and sick, like someone force fed me cotton candy.

    You should switch to the new water-based chrism, it washes off easier.

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  99. I think its hard for people to grasp the enormous numbers of people who have lived, and died, without any artistic or scientific merit at all. I was recently reading a book about Victorian London and it mentioned the fact that cemeteries that were designed for 3000 people were burying 80,000 by dint of digging down, jumping up and down on the top coffins, smashing the bottommost rungs, and then throwing another layer of dead people on the top. Somehow this really quantified for me, in a novel way, just how many people lived and died, every day, in a city like London.


    Anyway no one can go to Rembrandt's house in Amsterdam and think that the city was "full" of people like him. He painted a lot of people who were exactly not like him.

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  100. Now I really feel defiled.

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  101. This is gonna cause real trouble as soon as they start _thinking_ about the Bible.


    Which they've penciled in for the fifth of Never.

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  102. Woooo not in Colorado woooo. That's what's so awesome about it: taxation without incarceration. Now you can put mint or marijuana on your roast lamb.

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  103. You're thinking of Peter Abelard.

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  104. satch4:02 PM

    Or maybe St. Augustine.

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  105. smut clyde7:11 PM

    One thing I have learned through strolling around the stack room of the National Gallery is the startling number of people who thought they had artistic talent, but were sadly mistaken. Sturgeon's Law again.

    I am still puzzling my pretty little head over what K. Lopez was trying to say. If she was implying that there are no contemporary artists painting portraits and history scenes in a comparable style to Rembrandt -- painterly, relying on expressive brushstrokes rather than persnickety details, stripped of pretentious romantic trappings -- then she knows two-thirds of fuck-all about the art scene. If she meant that there are no brilliant artists around, again she knows 2/3 of SFA, though of course we may disagree with the Art Establishment and with the art critics on who is a genius and who isn't (and Sturgeon's Law dominates the field).

    Her point, perhaps, is that there should be a stratum of brilliant but neglected artists like Rembrandt (neglected because their styles have evolved to the point of falling out of favour with buyers); and they would have come to her attention, because of reviews, and people buying their artwork. But there aren't, therefore degenerate times, and therefore the luxury of legal dope (and not imprisoning people) is one that society can't afford. Because K. Lopez doesn't know of any hidden artists whom no-one has heard of.

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  106. Tracy8:51 PM

    I sneer at anyone who doesn't upvote Hawkwind.

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  107. BigHank5310:31 PM

    Man, you're overthinking this. Just do what Ms. Lopez is doing: begin the a priori assumption that these are indeed degenerate times, and wave your hands while throwing out random factoids.

    When you're addicted to clutching your pearls, pretty soon everything starts looking like a degenerate horror.

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  108. BigHank5310:34 PM

    Or the Borgia popes. Except I don't think they bothered to ask anyone for their opinions, including the nun's.

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  109. smut clyde2:14 AM

    No, no, Heloise wasn't a nun until * after* the unfortunate episode with the angry relatives.

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  110. Lemmy tell you why I didn't upvote...

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  111. I'd sus[ect ergot-tainted communion wafers.

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  112. Jon Hendry3:22 AM

    Erasmus demanded ass, grass, or a Mass?

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  113. Jon Hendry3:37 AM

    "With the good stuff, too"


    Manischewitz?

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  114. Jon Hendry3:41 AM

    It'd be ironic if the Feds totally leave the CO dispensaries alone, as if the reason for the CA dispensary busts was because of the "medicinal" aspect.

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  115. Jon Hendry3:45 AM

    "I feel sticky and sick, like someone force fed me cotton candy."


    And a marshmallow Peep nativity scene or ten.

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  116. Jon Hendry3:54 AM

    Of course, in Rembrandt's day, everyone was blotto on gin.

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  117. Jon Hendry7:30 AM

    Gin was a major problem in England in the 1700s, due to English laws passed to encourage drinking gin instead of French brandy.


    Below: Hogarth's depiction of a city wasted by gin, or possibly Boulder wasted by recreational pot.


    William_Hogarth_-_Gin_Lane.jpg

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  118. Mooser7:19 PM

    Well, gimme that old time religion, it was good enough for Silas, it's good enough for me.

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  119. Mooser7:26 PM

    There's a story about Cardinal who was invited to dine with one of the Borgia Popes. In a private letter to the boys back at the home cathedral place he said "the food tasted like poison, and the portions were so small!"

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  120. Mooser7:27 PM

    Fings ain't what they used to be.

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  121. Buñuel remains my favorite Catholic surrealist.

    Oh, I'm with you there. K-Lo's basically a character in The Milky Way, only less fun.

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  122. realinterrobang6:53 PM

    + many more than Disqus will let me.

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  123. realinterrobang7:04 PM

    Meh, right-wingers just hate the idea that someone, somewhere is having some kind of fun they don't approve of, which is to say most of it. So we get Brooks invoking Temperance Movement tropes about the evil weed instead of the demon rum, and insinuating that moral, correct, upright citizens don't do anything for fun unless it has some sort of didactic ulterior motive or something. As I said over at Amanda's joint, I bet he eats vegetables he hates on the grounds that they're good for him, and then feels morally superior to whatever strawliberal he's got in his head.

    These people's problem is that they think hedonism (or even just liking enjoyable things) is a bad thing.

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