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carrobin |
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:43 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Yes, there's already a backlash (to be expected of course) against the women who spoke up about Roy Moore (I got his first name wrong in my previous post). There are so many traps along the way when everything hits the newspapers, and the media (and the Internet) get rolling. There are undoubtedly some people who will make false accusations, though in the cases that have surfaced so far, I think the media involved have gone to great lengths to verify and prove the allegations. But so many men, and women too, refuse to give women a fair hearing in such cases. (Stephen Colbert had fun last night with the quote from the Alabama guy--judge? preacher?--who said there were a lot of women chasing boys down the road.) And level ground can be hard to determine in power situations, where one's job or reputation may be in jeopardy, and men almost always get the benefit of the doubt. Remember Anita Hill?
I think maybe hatpins will be coming back into fashion. |
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Syd |
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12902
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I spent most of Saturday at a Regional Space Development Conference in Grapevine, Texas (part of Dallas), and thoroughly enjoyed it. One highlight was Wally Funk, who was there to tell us of the Mercury Thirteen and inspire young women to become engineers. A story you don't hear about in The Right Stuff is that when they were choosing astronauts for the Mercury Program, seven men qualified--and thirteen women. The women went through just as rigorous a training, but lost out because they didn't have penises. (The official excuse was that we required test pilots to operate space capsules--which Wally Funk was eminently qualified to do.)
Funk devastated one question: wasn't the problem that NASA couldn't deal with women's plumbing? The solution was diapers (which apparently actually was the solution.) But if you think for a moment, how was this more difficult than dealing with defecation? |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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carrobin |
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Very interesting that nearly twice as many women qualified. But there's always an excuse, for those who have the clout to do what they want. Climate change, the tax "reform," gun laws--as the guy said, man is the rationalizing animal.
Tonight I escaped from the news and watched "The Princess Bride," which I'd never seen from beginning to end. Worth it. |
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Syd |
Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 8:45 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12902
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The Princess Bride is a movie that gets better with rewatching, too. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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whiskeypriest |
Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 9:53 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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carrobin wrote:
Tonight I escaped from the news and watched "The Princess Bride," which I'd never seen from beginning to end. Worth it. Inconceivable! |
_________________ I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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carrobin |
Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 3:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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I was checking CNN an hour or so ago and caught a Christine Amanpour interview with J.K. Rowling. What an incredible woman. She's put together a global charity, Lumos (wearelumos.org), to release "orphans" (80% do have at least one parent) who are institutionalized--or more like warehoused--around the world. Years ago she had seen a picture of a child crying in a tiny wire-enclosed cell by a little bed, and had learned about the situation; she started Lumos to get the children (who are usually handicapped in some way) reunited with their families and to supply those families with the money necessary to support them, and to fund medical and day-care support for those who had no families to return to. She funds the basics herself, but donations are welcome. She also said that too many people donate to such organizations without realizing that they're helping the corrupt governments involved, which profit from the rich countries' money, and she's made sure that all Lumos money helps the children and their families.
As Amanpour said, Harry Potter has done a lot of good in the world. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 11:40 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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Good on her. Always good to know where the $ really goes.
RIP Rance Howard, who played (among many career roles) Bruce Dern's brother in "Nebraska." And fathered Ron Howard. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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whiskeypriest |
Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:39 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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carrobin wrote: I was checking CNN an hour or so ago and caught a Christine Amanpour interview with J.K. Rowling. What an incredible woman. She's put together a global charity, Lumos (wearelumos.org), to release "orphans" (80% do have at least one parent) who are institutionalized--or more like warehoused--around the world. Years ago she had seen a picture of a child crying in a tiny wire-enclosed cell by a little bed, and had learned about the situation; she started Lumos to get the children (who are usually handicapped in some way) reunited with their families and to supply those families with the money necessary to support them, and to fund medical and day-care support for those who had no families to return to. She funds the basics herself, but donations are welcome. She also said that too many people donate to such organizations without realizing that they're helping the corrupt governments involved, which profit from the rich countries' money, and she's made sure that all Lumos money helps the children and their families.
As Amanpour said, Harry Potter has done a lot of good in the world. She rules twitter, too. As in, her response to a person who threatened to burn her movies and books because of her anti-Trump views: "Well, the fumes from the DVDs might be toxic and I've still got your money, so by all means borrow my lighter." |
_________________ I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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bartist |
Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 7:38 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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carrobin |
Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 8:04 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing how many Congressfolk are going to gamble their careers on the tax "reform" bill.
By the way, I've just been alerted by my boss that Meredith Corp. is going to buy Time Inc. So maybe Trump really will be Time's Man of the Year again. (Word is that the Koch brothers are funding part of the purchase.) |
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carrobin |
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 1:43 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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R.I.P. Jim Nabors. I remember when I was working at Dell Publishing, my first real job in New York, and one of the movie magazine writers stuck her head in the door to tell my boss, "I just heard that Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors got married on Long Island!" And I was already enough of a New Yorker to be surprised, but not shocked. |
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bartist |
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:30 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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I looked that up on wikipedi and got this:
Quote: A longstanding rumor maintains that Nabors "married" Rock Hudson in the early 1970s, shortly before Nabors began his relationship with Cadwallader.
Not only was same-sex marriage not yet legal in any U.S. state at the time, at least publicly, the two were never more than friends. According to Hudson, the story originated with a group of "middle-aged homosexuals who live in Huntington Beach", who sent out joke invitations for their annual get-together. One year, the group invited its members to witness "the marriage of Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors", at which Hudson would take the surname of Nabors' most famous character, Gomer Pyle, becoming "Rock Pyle". The rumor was spread by those who failed to get the joke, and because Nabors was still closeted at the time and Hudson never publicly admitted to being gay (despite widespread suspicion that he was), the two never spoke to each other again.
I knew little about Nabors, so his whole bio was interesting. He lived 23 years on a transplanted liver, which is a pretty good run. And he did legally marry his longterm male partner in Washington State, in 2013. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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carrobin |
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 12:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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That's interesting--I'll check out Nabors' obit. As I recall, I didn't hear any more about the "wedding," but I figured Hudson and Nabors must have at least been friends. The main thing that surprised me, really, was that they were so different, and it was hard to think of them as a couple. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 8:23 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/02/politics/trump-tweet-flynn-firing-fbi-reaction/index.html
45 just implicated himself in obstruction of justice.
A nice birthday present ( a couple days late ) for Jonathan Swift, who would have been 350 on Thursday.
I"m not sure any of the greatest political satirists could have penned anything more bizarrely funny than this.
I picture presidential aides trying to distract him so as to get his cellphone away from him. "Look, pretty shiny car keys! Look, a cookie! Look, they're rerunning The Apprentice on tv, and don't you look handsome!" |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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carrobin |
Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 1:09 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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According to a Times article tonight, that tweet was actually composed by Trump's "personal lawyer, John Dowd," who has claimed that he "should have been more careful with his language." So even Trump's lawyers have trouble with communication... |
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