Monday, July 06, 2015

I'M ONLY ONE MAN.

Was it really just 10 days ago that National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke, attempting to show his range by playing the role of conciliator, claimed that the wiser conservatives understood that the Obergefell "decision is now the law and that it is not going to change" and that sweet reason would prevail? Today at The Federalist, a team effort by Ben Domenech and Robert Tracinski:
Within hours of the Supreme Court’s resolution of the battle over same-sex marriage -- the triumph of a generation of gay-rights activists -- some were...
Ah, some were! Be advised Domenech and Tracinski supply no links to support the following assertions, which should give you some idea of how substantial they are:
....already calling for further steps to take tax exemptions away from churches, use anti-discrimination laws to target religious non-profits, and crack down on religious schools’ access to voucher programs. We learned media entities would no longer publish the views of those opposed to gay marriage or treat it as an issue with two sides...
Let's pause here a moment to note that, on that last bit, Domenech and Tracinski are apparently talking about the Harrisburg Patriot-News' decision to treat letters to the editor and op-eds critical of gay marriage the way it would treat "those that are racist, sexist or anti-Semitic," an arguable position to which the Patriot-News, being a private enterprise, has a perfect right, but which the brethren, whose thousands of web outlets claim and exercise similar rights every day, nonetheless insist is censorship (e.g., "Post-Obergefell, Dissent Is Now The Highest Form Of Bigotry," "FREE SPEECH TOSSED OUT THE WINDOW AS BIG NEWSPAPER BANS OP-EDS AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE"); they may also be talking about BuzzFeed's forthright support for gay marriage, which (since conservatives think every popular media venue, online or off, owes them a platform as a form of wingnut affirmative action) has similarly shivered their timbers (e.g., "EIC BEN SMITH: BUZZFEED IS PRO-GAY MARRIAGE — NEUTRAL ON SHARIAH").
...and the American Civil Liberties Union announced it would no longer support bipartisan religious-freedom measures it once backed wholeheartedly. A reality TV star pushed the transgender rights movement into the center of the national dialogue even as Barack Obama’s administration used its interpretation of Title IX to push its genderless bathroom policies into public schools. And we learned that pulling Confederate merchandise off the shelves isn’t enough to mitigate the racism of the past—we must bring down statues and street signs, too, destroying reminders of history now deemed inconvenient and unsafe...
I could ask what they mean by "must" -- has a law been passed? Or do they merely assert a right, undetectable in the Constitution, not to be mocked for their racism?  Indeed,  I could go on through every particular of the whole wretched screed -- for instance, "every comment, act, or joke can make you the next target for a ritual of daily attack by outraged Twitter mobs," to which a reasonable person might respond, first, this kind of thing is certainly not the exclusive province of liberals (e.g., "PIERS MORGAN GOT PWNED ON TWITTER OVER GUN CONTROL"), and second, grow the fuck up.

But you know what? For the first time since I took up this loathsome duty, I feel a bit overmatched.* Because since the Obergefell decision, I perceive that not some but most conservatives, from their elected officials and top pundits down to the bottom feeders, have gone barking mad. I do this alicublog thing in my spare time, you know, and most days I get material for posts desultorily, just by idly rifling through conservative sites. It's been kind of fun peeking into their rooms, detecting which of them has gone a little off his feed, and reporting back. But since gay marriage came in it's like every rightwing door I open reveals a shit-smeared, babbling Bedlam, with nearly every inhabitant shrieking his fool head off about the homosexual apocalypse. I could quit my job and report the atrocities day and night, and still not get the scope of the thing.

And it's not as if all of it's about gay marriage. Take this post by -- oh, look, it's Cooke again, and the title is "Repainting the General Lee Won’t Erase What It Symbolizes from History." No, really, Cooke, a British transplant whose pat-riotism apparently includes a fetish for the cheesiest Americana, is outraged that the impeccably Southern Bubba Watson, owner of the car from The Dukes of Hazzard, is replacing the rebel flag on the roof with the Stars and Stripes. Cooke reacts as if Watson planned to draw tits on Whistler's Mother:
There is a clear and necessary answer to Watson’s rather naïve inquiry, “Why not the American flag?” That answer: Because the General Lee is a piece of America’s cultural history, and civilized people do not vandalize their antiques.
The Dukes of Hazzard. He's talking about The Dukes of Hazzard. I was a teenager when that came out and even I knew it sucked. One searches in vain for signs that Cooke is kidding, or at least ironically inflating his own obsession like a nerd ostentatiously sighing over the set of the original Star Trek, but no, Cooke actually thinks this is important:
It is fashionable in our age to seek unity in all things, but the “General Lee” is not a statehouse, responsive to and reflective of the popular will. It is a historical artifact and cultural totem that sums up a particular moment in time. By amending it to suit contemporary fashions Watson is seeking, in effect, to erase that moment from history. This in my view is extraordinarily dangerous...

Must the owners of Monticello take Wite-Out to Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, lest the more egregious passages offend our modern sensibilities?; Must the custodians of vintage Aunt Jemima boxes throw them into the Mississippi to atone for their ugly anachronisms?...
And finally:
Just as to burn an unwanted book is not to kill its author, to paint over the roof of an attitude-laden car is in no way to go back in time and to eradicate that attitude from the record.
If you're wondering why that sentence is even clumsier than we can normally expect from Cooke, my guess is that he really wanted to compare painting over the General Lee with burning books, but something in his soul rebelled and convoluted his sentence structure. Which means there may be hope for him yet.

*UPDATE. Not that I didn't read the whole thing, but I don't recommend it -- it proceeds to a bizarre theory that the Culture War is not just a fucking annoyance for all concerned, but the wellspring of human progress:
The culture wars of the past produced great achievements in art, architecture, literature, and science as the opposing parties strove to demonstrate that they had more to offer and deserved the people’s admiration and loyalty. Those culture wars gave us Michelangelo’s David, Galileo’s science, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment, and the movement for the abolition of slavery.
I look forward to Ben Shapiro's blueprints for Breitbart Tower. It also contains this amazing sentiment:
The Sad Puppies are just the Salon des Refusés with different players...
It's the rightbloggers' world, we just don't live in it. Meanwhile in comments, which are choice, Another Kiwi points out that The General Lee of legend was actually a series of Dodge Chargers, so if Cooke is seriously about preserving Suthun heh'tage, he's in for a long search of collectible car dealerships and junkyards.

396 comments:

  1. Brother Yam11:02 PM

    I've figured there is no Peak Wingnut, but we have to be nearing the asymptote.

    Right?

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  2. coozledad11:02 PM

    civilized people do not vandalize their antiques

    Unless they're from the valley of the Sumer. Or native reliquaries in the Americas. Or pretty much any city in the US that has pre 1960's building stock.


    Civilized people do not value what they choose not to value.

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  3. The only redeeming aspect of the Dukes of Hazzard was providing Waylom Jennings with a steady paycheck, even if he blew it on coke.

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  4. coozledad11:21 PM

    I was a teenager when that came out and even I knew it sucked.
    Came out about the same time as Love Boat and Fantasy Island. My mom and my little sister watched them obsessively.
    I did not kill them.

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  5. FMguru11:25 PM

    Coming this winter: Braveheart II

    "They can take our lives, but they can never take...our Airfix model kits of the General Lee with original decal sheets!!1!"

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  6. well looks like them ol nro boys are at it again

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  7. every rightwing door I open reveals a shit-smeared, babbling Bedlam, with nearly every inhabitant shrieking his fool head off about the homosexual apocalypse



    this was an lol btw

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  8. i liked that suit boss hogg wore

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  9. coozledad11:33 PM

    Oh fuck no!

    http://www.swannysmodels.com/images/Rommel/boxart.jpg

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  10. Ellis_Weiner11:53 PM

    Of course you're going to SAY that...

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  11. Megalon11:56 PM

    I think "grow the fuck up" is about all the commentary most of this kulturekampf bullshit deserves.

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  12. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume11:57 PM

    Rommel....Rommel, you magnificent son of a bitch, I collected the entire set!

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  13. coozledad12:06 AM

    God, there were times when their viewing threatened to run over the rare broadcast of Yellow Submarine or The Haunting of Hill House. And yet, my X-Acto knife remained within its acrylic sheath.


    Bitches.

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  14. montag212:06 AM

    "Cooke reacts as if Watson planned to draw tits on Whistler's Mother:"

    Just fuckin' perfect.

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  15. Ellis_Weiner12:07 AM

    "...and civilized people do not vandalize their antiques."



    This is disingenousness on stilts. "Antiques" are private objects. Either this owner is entitled to deplore (and change) the meaning of what he owns, or he is to be crushed under the jackboot of Cooke's historicist imperatives.



    And--so sue me, Godwin--I'd love to hear Cooke defend some German idiot's fetishization of Nazi regalia on the grounds of being "civilized."



    "It's a lampshade made of human skin."
    "Shame! I don't want to be associated with this in any way!"
    "Not so fast. Civilized people do not vandalize their antiques."


    But then, Roy talks about Cooke's convoluted style--he's the house Brit, and I'm sure fancies himself smarter, better educated, and innately wittier, than the Jonah Goldbergs and Rich Lowrys who surround him. So for him, striking the pose of Defender of Civilization is tailor-made. Who cares if it's a parody of snooty toff indignation?

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  16. Ellis_Weiner12:08 AM

    (Upvoted, although it's properly "you magnificent bastard.")

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  17. tsam10012:10 AM

    Did this jackwagon actually equate the General Lee, a car with a fucking name from a make believe TV show to Jefferson's historical writings? Clean up your act, Chuck.

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  18. coozledad12:13 AM

    -I'd love to hear Cooke defend some German idiot's fetishization of Nazi regalia on the grounds of being "civilized."



    The next best thing will be hearing him defending Germany on the Greek deal.

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  19. "every comment, act, or joke can make you the next target for a ritual of daily attack by outraged Twitter mobs,"

    Isn't this the business plan for Twitchy?

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  20. montag212:14 AM

    Umm, yes, he did.

    Which is pretty much the definition of stretching an analogy to the breaking point. Cooke is the intellectual Gumby of NRO.

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  21. I have four brothers. Guess what we had to watch?

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  22. That was really uncool of Roy to mention the liberal plot to draw tits on Whistler's Mother. It was supposed to be a surprise.

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  23. angelfoot12:18 AM

    "It is a historical artifact and cultural totem that sums up a particular moment in time." Yes! Like that time I got loaded and let my juvenile delinquent buddy whip shitties with me on the hood of his car. Freebird!

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  24. coozledad12:19 AM

    http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78atsas.phtml ?

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  25. tsam10012:20 AM

    These conservatives and their slippery slope bullshit and imaginary causal chains really are barking mad, like Roy says. It's hilarious, but sometimes I feel like I'm laughing at a developmentally disabled kid. If they weren't so full of bullshit and so utterly disingenuous, I would almost pity them for living in that paranoid world, where a couple of guys getting married is is the WORST. THING. EVER. Famine? War? Disease epidemics? Fuck that shit. Do you know gays can get married now????

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  26. redoubtagain12:21 AM

    Thanks. All o' this. These people are not only bigots, they feel entitled to be bigots, and therefore despise those of us who point out their bigotry.

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  27. montag212:29 AM

    I wonder... does Cooke originate from the South of England?

    Is he just a good ol' boy from Brighton?

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  28. coozledad12:38 AM

    He could be a southern Mark Smith.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIez7lGxKps&list=RDJIez7lGxKps#t=31

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  29. montag212:39 AM

    Hmm, what particular moment in time does the General Lee sum up?



    An era of truly atrocious television, disco and... oh, hell, yes, of course: Reagan's first term. Now we get to the nub of the complaint. It must have been one of Reagan's favorite shows.

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  30. cleter12:45 AM

    I feel perhaps it's time to post a picture of the General Sherman again.

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  31. TGuerrant12:45 AM

    Bubba can always take it further...

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  32. mortimer200012:53 AM

    ...a historical artifact and cultural totem that sums up a particular moment in time.
    ...a piece of America’s cultural history, and civilized people do not vandalize their antiques.


    Bullshit it may be, but it does explain why Suzanne Somers isn't covered in graffiti.

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  33. TGuerrant12:53 AM

    And then, if you're stuck in an elevator with them, they tell you about their gay friends and their gay relatives, all of whom for some reason hate gay marriage. I'm guessing they don't want to have to buy a shower gift and play Toilet Paper Bride again, but if there's another reason, I've yet to pry it out of their het spokespersons before the doors open and I pretend we've reached the floor I want.

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  34. My older sister loved Fantasy Island. She thought it was often profound. I felt that way about Battlestar Galactica, the original, of course.

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  35. coozledad1:08 AM

    I gotta tell ya. Friends of mine had access to the cabinet of mysteries at Duke University's psychopharmacology lab. Methamphetamine sucks.

    D-Amphetamine should be put in the water supply.

    We never messed with the Sandoz LSD or the lab grade MDA, because the department heads had already swapped them out with polysaccharides.

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  36. JennOfArk1:08 AM

    "Post-Obergefell, Dissent Is Now The Highest Form Of Bigotry," "FREE SPEECH TOSSED OUT THE WINDOW AS BIG NEWSPAPER BANS OP-EDS AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE"



    It's almost as if they think they have the right to force the rest of us to listen to their incessant whining about how they disagree with matters of settled law. Relax, wingnuts, you're free to continue whining; the rest of us however have no obligation to listen.

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  37. tsam1001:11 AM

    So where could a person get some of this D-Amphetamine? Asking for a friend.

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  38. "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Tits."

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  39. Needs more flamethrower.

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  40. coozledad1:14 AM

    Convince your physician you have ADHD.

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  41. Boss Hogg wore only white suits. Mr. Roarke wore only white suits. Howard Roark was the protagonist of The Fountainhead. Connect. The. Dots.

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  42. tsam1001:16 AM

    I'll show him my alicublog comments then. Thanks.

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  43. tsam1001:18 AM

    BJ and the Bear!

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  44. Be advised Domenech and Tracinski supply no links to support the following assertions
    Well, in fairness, that's only because I haven't yet been appointed dictator legibus faciendis et reipublicae constituendae causa.some
    were already calling for further steps to take tax exemptions away from
    churches,Yeah, I'm actually with James Madison, Five-Foot-Four Founding Father, on this one: Not even "three pence" in government financial support for churches. Let them keep electioneering and endorsing candidates all they want, but tear up the tax-exemption side of the bargain too.
    use
    anti-discrimination laws to target religious
    non-profits,Indeed, I might treat this the same as above
    if government funds were involved. But hey, as long as they didn't let the government
    dollar camel's** nose into their tents, they'd have nothing to worry
    about.
    and crack down on religious schools’ access
    to voucher programs.Now this is only incidentally
    true. I'd crack down on all schools' access to
    voucher programs by killing voucher programs, preferably with fire. So
    it would be nothing personal.


    **The Government Dollar Camel is named Russell, and is a dromedary. He was featured on the back of the original notes of the Bank of the United States, next to Aleta the Revenue Bill Piping Plover.

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  45. bekabot1:34 AM

    A case could be made to the effect that "civilization" consists largely of a willingness to throw old stuff out. Less civilized people, OTOH, operate under the conviction that every venerable pile they bump into was put there through the will of the Gods, which is why it would be a sacrilege to tear the thing down and put up some nice condos (and a school and a courthouse and a sewage treatment plant) instead.

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  46. my guess is that he really wanted to compare painting over the General Lee with burning books, but something in his soul rebelled and convoluted his sentence structure.And my guess is that he remembered that he's on the side that's usually in favor of burning books.

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  47. some were already calling for further steps to take tax exemptions away from churches, use anti-discrimination laws to target religious non-profits, and crack down on religious schools’ access to voucher programs. We learned media entities would no longer publish the views of those opposed to gay marriage or treat it as an issue with two sides...

    It's all spelled out in a pamphlet, The Protocols of the Elders of Frisco.

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  48. No, really, Cooke, a British transplant whose pat-riotism apparently includes a fetish for the cheesiest Americana, is outraged that the impeccably Southern Bubba Watson, owner of the car from The Dukes of Hazzard, is replacing the rebel flag on the roof with the Stars and Stripes.

    I still think Bubba should paint the raibow flag over the stars-and-bars and rename the car the Stonewall Jackson.

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  49. Even worse, they want encomium for their bigotry. Fuck, they not only want to be able to shout out slurs, but they want a fucking cookie for it too.

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  50. ken_lov3:00 AM

    Charlie the 'piece of cultural history' is THE TV SHOW, not some prop that was used in it. But if it offends you, just buy the same model car, stick a Confederate flag on the roof, and call it the 'General Lee'. Nobody will know the difference. Problem solved.


    But it is nice to see you're broadening your repertoire beyond being the gun-worshipping "We're not all like Piers Morgan" Brit twit. Well done.

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  51. You want the righties to really get upset? Let them know that Daisy Duke is half Messican.

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  52. Last time I listened to this song, I ended up listening to nothing but The Fall for a whole weekend.

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  53. montag23:13 AM

    Maybe Cooke is admitting that cargo cults are a necessary fixture of modern conservatism.

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  54. hellslittlestangel3:46 AM

    Custodian of vintage Aunt Jemima boxes has got to be the ultimate wingnut welfare job.

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  55. montag23:47 AM

    Nothing can apparently diminish the volume..."BIG NEWSPAPER"... not even the fact that the Harrisburg Patriot-News publishes three days a week. (I'm guessing that it's referred to as a big newspaper because it's managed to creep into the top 100 in the country for Sunday circulation.)

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  56. hellslittlestangel4:00 AM

    Painting over the General Lee is the greatest cultural desecration since the Taliban dynamited the Buddhas of Bamiyan the cast and crew of Green Acres roasted and ate Arnold the pig.

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  57. Arnold's cracklin' was the best!

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  58. For god's sake Charlie, read about the car. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dukes_of_Hazzard#The_General_Lee "an estimated 309 Chargers were used".

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  59. MichaelNewsham5:31 AM

    I am disappointed that in all the screeches listed there was not one mention my former home, Canada, which has apparently become a totalitarian hellhole where Christians are forced to meet in cellars and pass copies of their teachings around as samizdat.

    Yet no mention by the MSM of the tens of thousands of Christians huddled in refugee camps in Michigan, Minnesota and Ma- well, I guess not Massachusetts- fleeing the horrors of life in Soviet Gay Canuckistan. You can help these brave persecuted martyrs for Jeebus by sending your donations to me at....

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  60. "I do this alicublog thing in my spare time, you know...." I don't know how to manage the shlepping through the sewage. At the end of the day, it's the spew of sick people (maybe) pandering to the cretinous and worse (definitely) -- what we call actual voters....

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  61. Marcus6:02 AM

    I was a teenager then, and I was watching it 'cause Catherine Bach, not the General Lee, if you get what I'm sayin'.

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  62. These guys are seriously upset that we won't have swastikas, I mean confederate flags, hanging around to learn our lessons from history?


    They should be consoled that we will just need to make sure we teach the true history of the traitorous bunch of murderous slavers who had a stranglehold on the South for all those years. Never Again! (am I right?) Like our friends the Germans, we could even pass a federal law criminalizing the denial or diminishing of the Confederate atrocities. That should reassure concerned citizens like Cooke that we will still learn from our past.


    Also, too, as for the fear of Obama the Great opening genderless bathrooms in the schools...I suppose that would be a difficult transition for all those kids who come from homes with Male and Female toilets. In mine, we all had to share, but I can sympathize.

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  63. 'Cept it's upside down in GB...the farther north you were reared, the more backward and redneck you are deemed to be.

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  64. montag26:21 AM

    "These Chargers performed many record-breaking jumps throughout the show,
    almost all of them resulting in a completely destroyed car."

    And there's the metaphor for the South and the Civil War.

    Or, maybe this was just a case of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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  65. montag26:26 AM

    Umm, actually I think the Cornish are the biggest butts of the British equivalent of redneck jokes. Although Glasgow residents are a close second.

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  66. Jeffrey_Kramer6:35 AM

    In the dystopian near-future, these brave wingnuts will take as their models the book people in Fahrenheit 451, who lovingly memorize and become the books burned by the totalitarian state. Except that reading is hard, so instead of becoming David Copperfield they'll settle for becoming the General Lee (paint your ass with the Stars and Bars and go run on all fours while making screeching wheel sounds) and Aunt Jemima. Christ, Aunt Jemima will be the first choice of so many of them there'll be duels to the death over the right to the part.

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  67. montag26:39 AM

    I don't think they give a shit about Aunt Jemima. But, Nathan Bedford Forrest, there was a character of the True South that wingnuts would find worth dueling over.

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  68. Jeffrey_Kramer6:43 AM

    NBF is a little too on the nose, I think. "Celebrating" Aunt Jemima lets them preserve a micro fig leaf of plausible deniability. ("I'm not being racist, I'm protesting political correctness.") Think of the fraternities who still want to put on (literal) minstrel shows.

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  69. montag26:44 AM

    Funny thing... the Nazis were big on slave labor, too.

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  70. The general lee = the Buddhas of Bamiya.

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  71. Whats past is prologue.

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  72. Also the plot of my next horror movie.

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  73. montag27:04 AM

    "These guys are seriously upset that we won't have swastikas, I mean confederate flags, hanging around to learn our lessons from history?"

    Pretty thin excuse. They know well that the flags didn't reappear until the civil rights movement heated up. They also know that a hefty percentage of their fellow white conservatives are from the South, and that encouraging them to continually pick at scabs is one way to keep them inside the GOP's big white tent. They also know that secession and nullification are favorite themes in the South, and the reactionaries in this country love them some nullification.

    So, there's no small amount of cupidity in that silliness.

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  74. El Manquécito7:16 AM

    The last time I saw Waylon perform was at the Sugarloaf base lodge. After thanking the crowd for the warm welcome he said, pointing up the hill, "It's good to be back at Sugarloaf. The last time I was here we snorted that whole run."

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  75. BigHank537:17 AM

    Jesus, don't you remember what colossal pieces of shit those Chargers were? I doubt they paid more than $500 for any of them. The catering bills were probably higher than the car-wrecking bills.

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  76. BigHank537:20 AM

    Starsky and Hutch?
    The A-Team?
    CHiPS?
    Emergency?


    It wasn't exactly a high-water era for television...

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  77. montag27:27 AM

    Mebbe so, but they were fuckin' Rolls-Royces compared to the Chevette.

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  78. One might get the impression that these guys are learning the wrong lessons from history.

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  79. Jaime Oria7:34 AM

    Here ya go -

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  80. BigHank537:34 AM

    Everyone knew that the show sucked. The audience knew. The crew knew. The actors sure as hell knew. It had the same wriggly-things-under-the-rock fascination that modern shows like Duck Dynasty and Honey Boo-Boo and Moonshiners all have, too: wait, is this shit really happening? And there's the same crowd of credulous dimwits lacking a reality filter who let corporate media roll into their brains like the incoming tide, and think the bits of flotsam and jetsam left behind are some kind of divine gift instead of second-hand memetic garbage.

    With some training it's not hard to extract reams of data from a garbage heap--ask any anthropologist or archeologist--but the very first thing you need to do is realize when you're looking at a garbage heap. Cooke...fails.

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  81. Jaime Oria7:38 AM

    Bellflower is btw an interesting flick. Come for the Kustom kar kommando hijinx, stay for the commentaries on the juvenile fantasy of post-apocalyptic warlord domination and macho failure.

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  82. Proteus4547:51 AM

    It's been kind of fun peeking into their rooms, detecting which of them has gone a little off his feed, and reporting back.


    You're a braver man than I, Roy.

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  83. montag27:58 AM

    Oh, I'd say that's pretty much baked into the conservative cake. It's one of the few worldviews in which being consistently wrong is a virtue.

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  84. I Love Middens! Greatest reality show of all time! Id watch the fuck out of seeing a handsome archaeologist slowly dig, thoughtfully, digging down through a large mound...wait...did i say that out loud?

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  85. cleter8:39 AM

    Or a Nazi flag on top of a VW bus named General Rommel. That would probably be cool, I guess.

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  86. It was nice of him to lend it to David Byrne for Stop Making Sense.

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  87. JennOfArk8:48 AM

    This is what they all woke up to a week ago Saturday:

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  88. JennOfArk8:51 AM

    TJ Hooker!

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  89. susanoftexas8:55 AM

    Vintage Aunt Jemima boxes have custodians? Actually they have buyers and sellers. Black Americana is often very valuable because of its rarity. Nobody wants to get rid of it, they either collect it or put it in a museum.
    Also, by anachronism I think Cooke meant racism but hey, let's not be offensive. White people are so sensitive. But in a good way, not in a bad why-the-hell-do-you-have-a-racist-flag way.

    From Collector's Weekly:http://www.collectorsweekly.com/advertising/black-memorabilia

    Across the Atlantic, as slavery became entrenched in the American way of life, representations of African Americans helped to reinforce this inhumane system. Just as white superiority was cultivated by clergymen, politicians, and scientists, this belief system was also spread through popular culture, via theatrical performances, song lyrics, advertising imagery, and the design of household objects.
    ...
    Much of this imagery perpetuated the association between African Americans and household servitude, like the smiling cook used in Cream of Wheat ads. Others aimed to get a laugh with depictions of simple-minded oafs obsessing over watermelon or being attacked by alligators. Caricatures of black people appeared on every imaginable product, although skin color was used especially often as an advertising punchline for goods like ink, tooth paste, shoe polish, washing powder, and house paint.

    ...
    Though Aunt Jemima is most famously associated with the Quaker Oats pancake mix, her character was originally based on a vaudeville minstrel song from 1875 called “Old Aunt Jemima.” In her apron and polka-dotted kerchief, Aunt Jemima became the familiar face of the mammy stereotype, a motherly and overweight black woman who is visibly happy in her subservient position. The mammy caricature is one of the most enduring black stereotypes, and was often used as proof that servitude was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Mammy caricatures appeared on a wide variety of household objects, especially kitchen-related items like cookie jars, dish towels, pitchers, string holders, salt and pepper shakers, tea tins, and detergent boxes.
    ...
    While many fear the preservation of Black Americana serves to prolong racist prejudices, others collect these objects to ensure that America’s troubled past isn’t forgotten by future generations. In the words of David Pilgrim, founder of the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University in Michigan, “Use items of intolerance to teach tolerance.”

    They can put the confederate flag next to the Aunt Jemima bottle. One of the right's favorite techniques is willful ignorance, agnotology. We don't want to get rid of the artifacts because we want to ensure nobody is able to deny the truth. Racism? It wasn't so bad. There was singing.

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  90. Cooke is acting as though offensive images and symbols have never been discreetly removed from public view before. There are some old Warner Bros. cartoons from decades past that have hideously racist imagery. Does Warner Bros. put them on the air anymore? No, of course not.

    Disney had to edit their classic movie "Fantasia" to remove images that have become offensive to general audiences. I don't know if they can show "Song Of The South" at all.

    That's just business. What's Charles Cooke going to do about it? Try to get a law passed that requires private industries to continue to produce material that has become offensive to the average consumer?

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  91. susanoftexas8:58 AM

    I don't think National Review can force the government to support it. It's having a hard enough time getting its readers to support it.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Helmut Monotreme9:10 AM

    Manimal?

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  93. montag29:13 AM

    Funny, I never pegged you as a masochist. They were horrible cars. I never saw such a panoply of faults in a single model, ever. For a tiny four-cylinder, they had terrible vibration (they had a gigantic vibration damper off the transmission, but most of the ones I saw didn't have one because they vibrated loose and fell off). Broken crank pulley bolts. Electrical systems that defied logic. Oil leaks that would embarrass a British car. Radiators with a capacity too small to begin with and that was before they filled up with brown goo. Automatic transmissions that made noises I'd never heard before or since. Tinkertoy front suspensions. Differentials that couldn't handle the power of a moped. And these were cars that were one to two years old.

    One of the most frightening bits of engineering sloth and mayhem ever devised. I'd actually rank them below a Fiat 128... or the Lada. The body designers were the biggest liars ever, because they made it look like it was an ordinary small car, while underneath the skin, they were instruments of the devil, intended to drive mechanics to an early death by drink.

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  94. BigHank539:14 AM

    I'm sure you also noticed that Uncle Jesse was fond of sending Bo and Luke out on errands that would consume the entire afternoon, giving Jesse and Daisy several hours to sit quietly on the porch, sipping moonshine. Unless they had something more interesting to do...

    While we're at it, what did happen to Bo and Luke's parents? And Uncle Jesse's wife? And Daisy's parents? Man, after looking at Wikipedia, this show was a hell of a lot darker than I remember.

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  95. Helmut Monotreme9:15 AM

    My dad and I were out picking up some lunch on Sunday when we saw a vintage Pinto in showroom condition. Showroom condition, in that none of the rust spots were larger than a dime.

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  96. BigHank539:20 AM

    You'll find it most entertaining that the British managed to make a useful rally car out of it. I present the Vauxhall Chevette HSR:

    https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=vauxhall+chevette+rally&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

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  97. See? It is the Left that are actually pro-slavery.

    ReplyDelete
  98. tsam1009:31 AM

    That's harsh, man! Poor Cookie Monster.

    ReplyDelete
  99. montag29:32 AM

    Well, I must say, that's one of the most desperate attempts to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear I've seen. And, I note, that they weren't using the car's original engine and transmission (and, therefore, didn't meet homologation rules because there weren't enough of them).

    And probably is testimony to the old adage that you can make a small fortune in racing, provided you start out with a large fortune. Geez, you'd probably spend less money trying to turn a bicycle into a Formula One car.

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  100. susanoftexas9:36 AM

    There were still a few good comedies left: Taxi, Barney Miller, Soap, M*A*S*H*. Teenage me watched One Day at a Time and The Incredible Hulk as well.
    One of my kids watched Hulk on Netflix and was surprised at the emotional depth Bill Bixby put in the role. Now she understands why I keep calling the Hulk David instead of Bruce.

    ReplyDelete
  101. M. Krebs9:51 AM

    Ah yes, Friday night was always where the best shows were scheduled.

    ReplyDelete
  102. susanoftexas9:53 AM

    Heh! Kitty's got claws.

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  103. LittlePig9:59 AM

    Heather Locklear in a policeperson's uniform? Gee, I can't imagine guys going for that.

    I was a bit old for the T.J. Hooker appeal. But then, my fave was My Living Doll, with the incredibly gorgeous Julie Newmar as a robot. Oh yeah boy howdy.

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  104. "...sometimes I feel like I'm laughing at a developmentally disabled kid."


    Except that most of the time, that kid isn't trying to stick a pithing knife into the brainstems of the rest of us.

    ReplyDelete
  105. LittlePig10:03 AM

    The surprising (to the suits at the time) success of Hee Haw led to a lot of shenanigans.

    ReplyDelete
  106. LittlePig10:04 AM

    He must have played them all...

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  107. "Cooke reacts as if Watson planned to draw tits on Whistler's Mother:"

    You say that like it's a bad thing...

    ReplyDelete
  108. Halloween_Jack10:06 AM

    There's a Donald Trump related joke there, but I'm not going to make it.

    ReplyDelete
  109. LittlePig10:06 AM

    Woah, a Very pistol. Most impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  110. hellslittlestangel10:06 AM

    "The culture wars of the past produced great achievements in art, architecture, literature, and science ..."

    Or as another icon of free enterprise put it, "In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of
    democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

    ReplyDelete
  111. Halloween_Jack10:08 AM

    If porn parodies had been a thing of the seventies, you just know that the Dick Pigs of Hazzard would have been made.

    ReplyDelete
  112. LittlePig10:10 AM

    All I got was elephant tranquilizers...

    (apologies for not finding a linkable reference)

    ReplyDelete
  113. What really greased the skids for this argument was when the Supremes ruled in Bush v Gore that recounting all the votes in Florida in 2000 would result in "irreparable harm" to Bush.

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  114. LittlePig10:12 AM

    Gotta go to Goldie Hawn for that.

    ReplyDelete
  115. LittlePig10:14 AM

    I'm actually with James Madison

    It's just good Originalist constitutional construction. I'm sure Justice Scalia would have no problem with it.

    ReplyDelete
  116. LittlePig10:16 AM

    Given that that was the most Dadaist program to run in American television broadcast, that roasting would not have run particularly contrary.

    ReplyDelete
  117. LittlePig10:17 AM

    well, save your pennies and save your dimes...

    ReplyDelete
  118. As a quarter-Swiss-American, I have to note that Switzerland exported its most violent men as the finest mercenaries of Europe, and that cuckoo clocks are Bavarian. The Eidelweiss is a thing, though, even though most people associate it with Austria.

    ReplyDelete
  119. hellslittlestangel10:21 AM

    Are you calling Harry Lime dishonest?

    ReplyDelete
  120. It all happened so quickly. I wish that would burn them out, but instead it's burning you out.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Each one a special snowflake!

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  122. Halloween_Jack10:26 AM

    I think that it was originally part of what came to be known as "hixploitation", which sprang from the same longstanding fascination with/mocking of hillbilly culture as Hee Haw and the Lil' Abner comic strip, but took a darker and more sexual turn with Deliverance. (The list in the above link oddly doesn't include Macon County Line, produced by Max Baer, Jr., aka Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies, and also seems to be missing some others.) The Dukes of Hazzard is based off another hixploitation film, Moonrunners, which stars Robert Mitchum's son, who was also in Thunder Road, playing the younger brother of his dad's character, a role that was originally meant to go to Elvis Presley. Moonrunners also has both music and narration by Merle Fucking Haggard.)

    ReplyDelete
  123. mrstilton10:28 AM

    Today at The Federalist... by Ben DomenechNo, seriously though, who really wrote it?

    ReplyDelete
  124. You misspelled "hot", because reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  125. hellslittlestangel10:28 AM

    It was a hell of a way to treat the painter of Nude At A Filling Station .

    ReplyDelete
  126. Halloween_Jack10:29 AM

    Seriously, that's probably my favorite cosplay right there.

    ReplyDelete
  127. tigrismus10:30 AM

    I hope blondy gave Farrah her hair back when he was done with it.

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  128. Halloween_Jack10:31 AM

    I'm reminded of the plot point in Ghost World in which the obsessive collector (played by Steve Buscemi, a perfect casting choice) reveals that a popular restaurant used to be known as Coon Chicken, something that the corporation isn't happy about acknowledging.

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  129. Relativicus10:31 AM

    "Meanwhile in comments, which are choice, Another Kiwi points out that The General Lee of legend was actually a series of Dodge Chargers, so if Cooke is seriously about preserving Suthun heh'tage, he's in for a long search of collectible car dealerships and junkyards."

    As the great Trump, Donald Trump, Trump of the TrumpTrump, once said, "Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war." To the Police Auction!

    ReplyDelete
  130. M. Krebs10:31 AM

    The problem with a vertical asymptote is that you can't get to the other side.

    ReplyDelete
  131. No, just ignorant- I bet he thinks raclette is a French A-cup.

    ReplyDelete
  132. Halloween_Jack10:34 AM

    Kind of reminds me of what I've read about the Bluesmobile; they really did just buy a bunch of decommissioned cop cars at auction for the film, and none of them survived filming.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Mooser10:34 AM

    "If you're wondering why that sentence is even clumsier than we can
    normally expect from Cooke, my guess is that he really wanted to compare
    painting over the General Lee with burning books, but something in his soul rebelled and convoluted his sentence structure."



    I see this a lot, and I'm convinced it's their fingers which rebelled. The hand is quicker than the eye, and sometimes it tries to be more honest. And that fractured syntax is what comes out.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Relativicus10:34 AM

    That's okay. Rand Paul believes that the percentage by which you are taxed is the percentage of which you are a slave.

    ReplyDelete
  135. mrstilton10:38 AM

    NEEDS MOAR CTHULHU.

    ReplyDelete
  136. tsam10010:39 AM

    Ya got me there. That is definitely hot. I love that she made boots out of his fur.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Mooser10:40 AM

    Around here, what's past still comes to light every month, with interest.

    ReplyDelete
  138. tsam10010:40 AM

    Is it a flare gun or a toy? I can't tell.

    ReplyDelete
  139. tsam10010:41 AM

    They exist. Daisy getting daisy chained. I certainly haven't seen it, a friend informs me that it's a thing.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Halloween_Jack10:44 AM

    like a nerd ostentatiously sighing over the set of the original Star Trek

    Hey, I resemble that remark! (I don't actually own any authentic Trek memorabilia, but I did have a pang of regret when the original captain's chair went up for auction--it ended up going for $304,750--and also reading that the original shuttlecraft had been sitting in some dude's backyard for decades before someone got the idea to restore it. I freely admit that I'd want something like that purely for nerd bragging points: "So you have an action figure collection. That's cute. Hey, let's take a walk out to the backyard..."

    ReplyDelete
  141. FlipYrWhig10:44 AM

    It had the same wriggly-things-under-the-rock fascination


    Yeah, I remember Catherine Bach too.

    ReplyDelete
  142. DN Nation10:46 AM

    Friendly reminder that Bubba Watson hit up Waffle House after winning the Masters the second time. Relevant to nothing, but still awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  143. montag210:47 AM

    Let's put it this way. I don't think anyone ever said, "it runs as smooth as an Albanian watch."

    Back in the early `60s, there was a possibly apocryphal story about some American firm having claimed to have produced the finest drawn wire ever made. A Swiss company asked for a sample, and a couple of months later, sent it back with a hole drilled through it.

    The point of it being that no one thought the story preposterous. The Swiss had that sort of reputation, regardless of what the nefarious Harry Lime may have thought.

    ReplyDelete
  144. tsam10010:49 AM

    My first crush. Goldie on Laugh In with the bikini and graffiti...good stuff, mang.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Ellis_Weiner10:49 AM

    It takes time, but I get there: Bubba Watson is a public personality. By choice and profession, in a sport with international (not just regional) popularity. Does Cooke expect him to cherish and display a symbol of slavery for the sake of "civilization"?

    ReplyDelete
  146. DN Nation10:49 AM

    Looks like ol' Jonah better grow wings. Or use his farts to propel him to flight.

    ReplyDelete
  147. tsam10010:50 AM

    I had a 73 Challenger that was sort of a piece but OMFG was that thing fast. 340, slapstick transmission, Holley 4BB--that thing was ripped.

    ReplyDelete
  148. susanoftexas10:50 AM

    Those corporations are giving the right an apoplexy.

    Tell me what's wrong with you now , tell me why I
    Never seem to make you happy though heaven knows I try
    What does it take to please you? Tell me just how
    I can satisfy you woman, you're drivin' me wild

    Break up to make up, that's all we do
    First you love me then you hate me
    That's a game for fools

    ReplyDelete
  149. tsam10010:51 AM

    67 Chevelle is Shirley what you meant.

    ReplyDelete
  150. tsam10010:51 AM

    No fire damage either? WOW. The LAST ONE!

    ReplyDelete
  151. susanoftexas10:54 AM

    I bought a 1968 model kit of the Enterprise when I stumbled across it. It's okay if you say it's for your kid. Although I had to actually give it to him to get away with that.

    ReplyDelete
  152. montag210:59 AM

    When did you start your internship under Der Pantload? Is it true about the Cheetos dust ground into the fabric of his chair?

    ReplyDelete
  153. susanoftexas11:01 AM

    That ain't Cheetos dust.

    ReplyDelete
  154. BigHank5311:01 AM

    I like driving. I like cars, too. One day I got curious and poked around in Car and Driver's archives and looked up the numbers on a bunch of muscle cars--I had a chance to buy an AMX Javelin, which was widely regarded as the best-handling muscle car ever built. (I'm not interested in drag racing and I've always lived near mountains, so this was important to me. YMMV.) Anyway, the AMX pulled the same skidpad figures as the daily driver I had: a 1987 Nissan pickup truck.

    I didn't buy the AMX.

    ReplyDelete
  155. BigHank5311:05 AM

    Meanwhile in comments, which are choice, Another Kiwi points out that The General Lee of legend was actually a series of Dodge Chargers,
    so if Cooke is seriously about preserving Suthun heh'tage, he's in for a
    long search of collectible car dealerships and junkyards.


    Given that the vast majority of those Chargers were wrecked in Burbank, CA, it's safe to say that they were summarily crushed and sold to Japan for three cents a pound, and then sold back to us as Hondas, Mazdas, and Subarus.

    ReplyDelete
  156. montag211:06 AM

    Road & Track did a similar comparison in the early `70s. The skidpad performance of the early Porsche Speedster was on a par with... the Karmann Ghia.

    ReplyDelete
  157. BigHank5311:06 AM

    Flare gun. British.

    ReplyDelete
  158. bekabot11:08 AM

    "Men must have something to revere..."

    ReplyDelete
  159. Marion in Savannah11:17 AM

    Give him a match, he'll orbit Mars.

    ReplyDelete
  160. M. Krebs11:20 AM

    That whole paragraph is wonderful.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Helmut Monotreme11:20 AM

    Cargo cults get a bad rap. They had a ton more intellectual consistency and honesty than modern conservatism.

    ReplyDelete
  162. M. Krebs11:21 AM

    And lipstick from his blood.

    ReplyDelete
  163. M. Krebs11:28 AM

    One of my brothers got one of those when he returned from Nam. He used it to chop down a telephone pole. Nearly killed him.

    ReplyDelete
  164. Lurking Canadian11:32 AM

    Seems to be missing the star-spangled banner on the roof. And the dash between 1 and 0, making clear that this is a won/loss record.

    ReplyDelete
  165. coozledad11:36 AM

    Ron Jeremy as Boss Hog.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Lurking Canadian11:37 AM

    Indeed. It was the scientific method at work. "Last time somebody built this shit, the cargo came, so don't you think..."


    "Worth a try!"

    ReplyDelete
  167. Lurking Canadian11:47 AM

    Anybody else remember a show from those days called "Wizards and Warriors"? I liked it, cuz, you know, swords and bewbs, but I recently read some forum somewhere where people were talking about how "politically aware" it was. Apparently there was shit going on in the dialogue that I didn't notice cuz of the bewbs.

    ReplyDelete
  168. Answer: All of them, Katie!

    I especially resented Dukes of Hazzard. But: fast cars and Daisy Duke. There was no way that wasn't getting watched religiously, and at high volume, in a house full of pre- and post-pubescent boys.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Brother Yam12:08 PM

    Would you want to?

    ReplyDelete
  170. Disco did not suck!

    ReplyDelete
  171. Marion in Savannah12:27 PM

    Oh, the hell it didn't! Made me turn off the radio, and I haven't really turned it back on since.

    ReplyDelete
  172. There were some good police dramas, too. Ironsides was must-see TV for me.

    MTM the Chuckles Bites the Dust episode is one of the great sitcom episodes of all time., IMNSHO.

    ReplyDelete
  173. Sometimes shows about ancient creatures and plants show the tedious but necessary work that needs to be done in order to unearth the past properly, going down slowly, taking it to the right level.........

    ReplyDelete
  174. Just imagine if all the props used in all the TV shows every put on the air were "preserved" as historical antiques. Ye Gods.

    ReplyDelete
  175. susanoftexas12:46 PM

    That was a great lineup--The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart, then Carol Burnett.

    Second funniest moment: Rev. Jim gets a cabbie's license.

    ReplyDelete
  176. They imagine themselves as the plucky "Rebel Alliance" battling the evil Empire. The confederate battle flag is just as sacred as the Millennium Falcon!

    ReplyDelete
  177. In an interview she mentioned that she was often sewn into her outfits, and then they were pinned to make them even tighter.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Surely they didn't have any racist connotations with that, just the animal racco...oh holy shit, look at that

    ReplyDelete
  179. Eve Whitfield was the kind of woman my mother would've approved of: Someone with enough gutsto do her own thing. And a San Francisco socialite to boot!

    ReplyDelete
  180. Loved that show. Sigh. Ah, youth!

    ReplyDelete
  181. You don't see progressive culture warriors complaining about Hogan's Heroes which just goes to show, Liberal Fascism something something.

    ReplyDelete
  182. ColBatGuano1:00 PM

    If "The Dukes of Hazzard" represent a shining beacon of our cultural heritage, we need to burn this whole thing down and start over. Just salt the earth with the ashes of original scripts.

    ReplyDelete
  183. I saw the actual original Starship Enterprise. It's in a display at the Air and Space Museum gift shop and is about 3 ft by 2 ft in size.

    ReplyDelete
  184. ColBatGuano1:02 PM

    Those digital pitchforks and torches can really hurt your feelings....if you don't just choose to ignore them. The constant screeching about those horrible twitter mobs (Chait pulled this one too) is just too lame for words.

    ReplyDelete
  185. those culture wars gave us Michelangelo’s David, Galileo’s science, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment, and the movement for the abolition of slavery.

    nope

    ReplyDelete
  186. susanoftexas1:05 PM

    Which was smart marketing. I wasn't going to go to the gift shop until I saw the sign about the Enterprise.

    ReplyDelete
  187. tsam1001:09 PM

    What a stupid thing to posit--that The Dukes of Hazzard represents anything other than a dumb TV show. Now CHIPS--there was a show.

    ReplyDelete
  188. I had one of those, except they called it a '77 Mustang II.

    ReplyDelete
  189. ColBatGuano1:13 PM

    The 6 million dollar man would like a word.

    ReplyDelete
  190. Jay B.1:13 PM

    John Henry Faulk was a goddamn hero.

    ReplyDelete
  191. I bet that pork dinner had a lot of personality.

    ReplyDelete
  192. Jay B.1:15 PM

    My very liberal late grandpappy LOATHED that show and wouldn't let my stepdad watch it. He was, of course, a POW and didn't really cotton to the idea that his tormentors were a bunch of easily fooled saps.

    ReplyDelete
  193. I do, so the fun part of them is kind of a wash.

    OTOH, I do have a stockpile, since I only take my meds when I need them and my shrink gives me more than enough scripts to last me.

    ReplyDelete
  194. Complete with Chris Pine's dad!

    ReplyDelete