The Swamp

Marty Smith just did an incisive segment, bottle flipping with some Alabama players.

Nat Hentoff, 91.

His son Nicholas said he was surrounded by family members and listening to Billie Holiday when he died.

Oh those cheeky English newspapers!

I'll take Zombie Bonnie Franklin/Alan Hunter -3.5

Two of the three finalists (including the winner) for the Pulitzer Prize in feature photography were Central Michigan grads. We've had a couple other J-School alums win Pulitzers, but never had two finalists (there are usually only three).

Both studied under Trey Parker's (of South Park fame) uncle, who was a long-time professor of photojournalism at CMU.

So...how about the whole Hannity/Seth Rich "Murdered by the DNC!" story...
Sean Hannity, a Murder and Why Fake News Endures

If we can learn anything from the latest triple-bank-shot of a conspiracy theory coursing through the alt-reality media — this one involving the unsolved murder of a Democratic National Committee staff member named Seth Rich — it’s this: Fake news dies hard.

Worth reading the whole crazy story...and the bottom line: Hannity is a piece of shit. Hopefully Rich's family sues him for everything he's got.

There are reports that other Fox News employees are livid with Hannity over his handling of the Rich issue. I don't want to get my hopes up yet but if Hannity joins O'Reilly on the unemployment line, that will be the best thing about 2017.

It's hard to imagine any Fox News employees having even a shred of human decency, but fact remains it's entirely possible.

But to so many mouth breathers, Hannity/Dotcom are Woodward/Bernstein.

brian wrote:It's hard to imagine any Fox News employees having even a shred of human decency, but fact remains it's entirely possible.

Well someone high up had to make the call to issue the retraction/apology. And then Hannity pissed on that. I'm sure that pissed someone off. I'm pretty sure Fox News is a Follow The Rules and Respect Authority kind of place.

Body Language Experts Explain Trump's Personality

CNN ups its game,

Sounds like Thiel is coming for Deadspin now:

http://awfulannouncing.com/online-outle ... dspin.html

Bell is a piece of shit.

That said, these cases could not be more different. I've read the Deadspin piece a couple of times and while I have no idea of the provenance of the reporting, it certainly seems accurate. I suppose the writer could have literally made up part of it but I can't imagine why he would have felt compelled to since there was already so much there to hang Pregame and Bell with.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been right-wing garbage for a long time, but giving Jason Whitlock of all people column space to question Colin Kaepernick's blackness is disgusting. I'm not going to link to Whitlock's trash, but Deadspin has a post excoriating him and the WSJ this morning.

Columnist for an actual, large newspaper insists an NFL head coach was trying to troll it's teams own fans by its use of a particular player (in a game said team won by two touchdowns).

This might be one of the most breathtakingly dumb things I've ever read.

That was pretty damn dumb.

rass wrote:That was pretty damn dumb.

After the game, Ebron left the locker room before reporters showed up. He only retweeted a few videos of his TD catch Sunday night. He hasn’t tweeted anything himself since Friday, when he saw the new movie about Thor, a Norse god who has incredible abilities but angers the heavens when he doesn’t measure up to Aaron Donald or Odell Beckham.

??????

After the game, Ebron left the locker room before reporters showed up. He only retweeted a few videos of his TD catch Sunday night. He hasn’t tweeted anything himself since Friday, when he saw the new movie about Thor, a Norse god who has incredible abilities but angers the heavens when he doesn’t measure up to Aaron Donald or Odell Beckham.

??????[/quote]

Those are the two players picked after Ebron in the 2014 draft.

And now...I present...the most bat-shit crazy thing I've ever tried to read...written by the scholar Sam Sorbo. Yes, now the wife of Hollywood D-Lister Kevin Sorbo is getting space on the Fox News website to spew drivel.

Our culture is experiencing a hostile takeover. We must stop rejecting God if we ever want it to end

Our culture is undergoing a hostile takeover. American society used to be governed by Judeo-Christian do-unto-others morals. But we have drifted (been pushed, really) into a hedonistic YOLO (You Only Live Once) cultural morass. The upshot of this is a distinct lack of respect for human life in general, as well as a pervasive, insidious obsession with self.

This is the “me” generation, the “selfie” culture, the “entitlement” mentality. And what is entitlement, except the narcissistic assumption of deserving and demanding what is not earned?

Our cultural crisis is exhibited by egotistic multimillionaires demonstrating on football fields against the police instead of seeking solutions to rampant inner-city violence; coddled young people demanding free birth control and socialized health care; and even the major media ignoring the corruption trial of Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

Another example of the crisis is the lack of attention the mainstream media are paying to the Clintons’ collusion to sell Russia 20 percent of U.S. uranium.

We’ve replaced our moral imperative to do what’s right with a personal obsession of what’s in it for ME?

Oh, do I have a story about this one. Not sure I can tell it though.

govmentchedda wrote:Oh, do I have a story about this one. Not sure I can tell it though.

I'm pretty sure that there is nothing you can't tell the Swamp.

Good point. Also, this really isn't that great of a story.

So, I was invited to meet another attorney for wine one afternoon a few weeks ago, which is a bit odd in and of itself, as I don't really know that attorney, but we just started working on opposite sides of a divorce case. Why we were meeting for wine on a late afternoon weekday really didn't make much sense to me either. This attorney is a vocal and active part of a larger movement within family law, called Collaborative Divorce. Collaborative Divorce is sold as a cheaper alternative to a standard divorce. I thought we were going to maybe discuss the new case that we have, or to have her sell me on the benefits of Collaborative Divorce as I am not trained or certified, but have handled a couple collaborative cases.

Collaborative divorce wasn't really discussed at all, and neither was this case, in any great depth. It was just sort of a one hour get to know you session. This attorney is a bit of a saleswoman by nature, and so my guard was somewhat up, and I was doing more listening than talking. She got to talking about how her sister has a new movie coming out, and that her husband was involved as well. I can't remember specifically, but I think she pulled up her phone, or asked me to pull up mine and google whatever the name of the movie was. I went from, oh hey, cool, your sister wrote/produced/whatever, a movie to, OH, it was funded by Sean Hannity. I'm very curious what my face looked like as I got to the portion of the article where he was mentioned.

Giff's stories are better.

When Sam Sorbo was known as Sam Jenkins, she was based in Toronto for a while and was dating a friend of mine. Seemed nice enough the three or so times I met her.

but get this... my friend is a JEW!!!

Looks like the meet up at conventions isn't able to cover the tithes for the Sorbo family.

Funny hearing him tell the stories about how all he had to do was take off his shirt to get the role of Hercules. And now he is directing a movie funded by Sean Hannity.

This article, in yesterday's NY Times is causing quite an uproar about the "normalization of Nazis".

A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland

In Ohio, amid the row crops and rolling hills, the Olive Gardens and Steak ’n Shakes, Mr. Hovater’s presence can make hardly a ripple. He is the Nazi sympathizer next door, polite and low-key at a time the old boundaries of accepted political activity can seem alarmingly in flux. Most Americans would be disgusted and baffled by his casually approving remarks about Hitler, disdain for democracy and belief that the races are better off separate. But his tattoos are innocuous pop-culture references: a slice of cherry pie adorns one arm, a homage to the TV show “Twin Peaks.” He says he prefers to spread the gospel of white nationalism with satire. He is a big “Seinfeld” fan.

Its pretty disgusting, on the whole.

I saw the angry tweets about that this morning, so I read the article. I get why people reacted the way they did, but I didn't see the article the same way. To me, it was more of a warning that these dudes could be anybody, anywhere. Don't expect every white nationalist to be a tattoo-covered truck driver from Mississippi.

Shirley wrote:I saw the angry tweets about that this morning, so I read the article. I get why people reacted the way they did, but I didn't see the article the same way. To me, it was more of a warning that these dudes could be anybody, anywhere. Don't expect every white nationalist to be a tattoo-covered truck driver from Mississippi.

I'm not sure anyone (who is not an idiot) doesn't already realize that. I mean, at least if they pay attention to the news.

brian wrote:

Shirley wrote:I saw the angry tweets about that this morning, so I read the article. I get why people reacted the way they did, but I didn't see the article the same way. To me, it was more of a warning that these dudes could be anybody, anywhere. Don't expect every white nationalist to be a tattoo-covered truck driver from Mississippi.

I'm not sure anyone (who is not an idiot) doesn't already realize that. I mean, at least if they pay attention to the news.

Yeah, I don't think too many minorities in this country would be surprised by the idea that polite, "normal" seeming people can be white supremacists. That's like the one constant in the history of the US.

I think the argument is that the average white person may not realize how ordinary these bigots can be (Eichmann was the definition of ordinary) and may not understand the thrust of the article. Of course, I don't know what percentage of the NYT readership consists of average white people

I guess the point of the article was to alarm and alert the educated white class to the fact that Nazis among us is a bigger issue than many realize. But, in trying to show that "ordinary"-seeming folks can be Nazis, maybe they underplayed the real evil that defines those folks.

This is a much better article about white supremacists in America:

The Making of an American Nazi

On december 16, 2016, Tanya Gersh answered her phone and heard gunshots. Startled, she hung up. Gersh, a real-estate agent who lives in Whitefish, Montana, assumed it was a prank call. But the phone rang again. More gunshots. Again, she hung up. Another call. This time, she heard a man’s voice: “This is how we can keep the Holocaust alive,” he said. “We can bury you without touching you.”

When Gersh put down the phone, her hands were shaking. She was one of only about 100 Jews in Whitefish and the surrounding Flathead Valley, and she knew there were white nationalists and “sovereign citizens” in the area. But Gersh had lived in Whitefish for more than 20 years, since just after college, and had always considered the scenic ski town an idyllic place. She didn’t even have a key to her house—she’d never felt the need to lock her door. Now that sense of security was about to be shattered.

sancarlos wrote:I guess the point of the article was to alarm and alert the educated white class to the fact that Nazis among us is a bigger issue than many realize. But, in trying to show that "ordinary"-seeming folks can be Nazis, maybe they underplayed the real evil that defines those folks.

I think that's a good summary. It never hurts to learn more about our enemies or dangerous people in general. But that article played it too safe. For example, was there a followup question to his comment that he believed the 6 million Jews killed number was too high? Did he think Hitler killed no Jews, or was there a more acceptable, "real" number, like 1 million?

I read the Times piece.

While so much of it seemed to be leaning towards the "they're just like regular folks" idea, a few well-placed tidbits showed the subject's true colours. His ignorance and racism were ultimately on full display.

Shooting fish in a barrel for sure, but disturbing nonetheless.

Pruitt wrote:I read the Times piece.

While so much of it seemed to be leaning towards the "they're just like regular folks" idea, a few well-placed tidbits showed the subject's true colours. His ignorance and racism were ultimately on full display.

Shooting fish in a barrel for sure, but disturbing nonetheless.

ETA

Apparently a lot of people are upset that the article didn't use enough adjectives that would have made it obvious that the subject was a complete idiot.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/26/media/new-york-times-nazi-sympathizer-next-door/index.html

Quartz culture editor Indrani Sen said the story lacked "any explanation to the reader of why exactly this story exists, and what the writer expects the reader to glean from it."
"Without that we have, essentially, a puff piece about a Nazi sympathizer," Sen wrote.

Rhetorical question: Do we now live in an age where everything has to be black or white?

Does everything have to be dumbed down and presented like an angry diatribe?

Counterpoint - you can write that piece without making it seem like a puff piece and not have it be a diatribe.

I assume most have seen this since it flew around the twitter-verse, but in case not, he really is on point with the tweet-storm:

https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/934875769850998790

https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/934876480647122944