Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, September 10, 2022
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51 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Good morning from IAH
Gawd, I hate a lot of things about Texas.
Ah, one mystery solved. According to Herr Professor Navarro, it was all Jared’s fault.
But the money quote is here:
Hey, Pete. What does it say that Donnie hired you?
@EddieInCA: Can you name your top 3?
@Kathy: I love the first part of that piece:
A coward to the end.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, Trump wouldn’t fire people face-to-face, but he certainly seemed to enjoy trashing them on Twitter–and then firing them via Twitter.
MLB hates baseball.
Trigger warning.
Bookmark this,
@OzarkHillbilly: The funny thing is, the Bible doesn’t seem to really say anything about abortion.
Watched the third ep of Rings of Power.
Sigh.
All the pictures are beautiful. There’s no story for me to be caught up in. The acting is not great, but in fairness the actors aren’t given much to work with. The writing is shit, incompetent. And Morfydd Clark is insufferable.
Not a problem: diverse elves, dwarves, etc…
Problem: Mary Sue Galadriel.
I have no investment in any story line, or in any character. More than a third of the way through season one and I kind of want the orcs to win.
My suggestions:
1) Fire the writers. They don’t have the chops. They are not going to develop the chops.
2) Shift the entire narrative away from Galadriel, that whole thing is a misfire.
@gVOR08: As far as I know, the only time abortion is mentioned in the Bible is in Numbers, beginning with 5: 11-29:
So, yeah, they get their “life begins at conception” from some place other than the Bible.
More probable obstruction, at the very least.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Daily Mail linky doesn’t seem to work for me.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The Bible could have really used an editor.
@Michael Reynolds: Most definitely. A whole lot of needless repetition.
@CSK: I went to the tweet and clicked on the link there and it worked. I thought. But all I got was a blank page with a URL mentioning Melania’s polka dot dress.
shrug
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9560663/Melania-Trump-wears-polka-dots-celebrate-Mothers-Day-Mar-Lago-Barron-Donald.html
@OzarkHillbilly:
(raises hand)
Guadalupe Mountains NP.
Palo Duro Canyon SP.
Big Bend NP.
Perhaps I misinterpreted your question……that was not directed at me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Mimai: I was asking Eddie for the top 3 things he “hates… about Texas,” but I like your list of things to like. I have yet to get to Big Bend and have spent way too much time in the Guads (if such a thing is possible) and would really like to get back to Palo Duro some day.
@OzarkHillbilly:
That article is from last year.
If it’s true that Trump took papers to Bedminster, that’s a major development.
@OzarkHillbilly:
An intentional misreading on my part. Sorry?
Too much time in the Guads? I think not. Unless you get caught out with an insufficient supply of water. Oof! Do you have a hidden gem recommendation for that area?
Palo Duro is so damn great. My best friend works dairies out that way. Such an interesting and surprising landscape. Under-rated wintertime destination.
Big Bend – Go! If you can. I suspect it will hit all the right frequencies for you. Go! If you can.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The link to the Daily Mail in Peter Sztrok’s tweet works.
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. I should have been more precise and said the Bible doesn’t say anything against abortion. I forgot about that bit where it says under certain circumstances you SHALL attempt abortion, and gives instructions.
@Mimai: I did a lot of caving there. That was the main draw. Everything else was pure bonus.
Hahahahaha……ehrmagerd, you guys gotta see this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B1RJiOGPUI
I’ll show myself out. 😛 😛 😛
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s the writing style of parts of the Bible (and how it differs radically from other parts) that Julian Jaynes uses as a piece of evidence in his book on the origins of consciousness.
@Michael Reynolds:
I see where you’re coming from, I don’t totally agree. I don’t know how much of your criticism is rooted in being a writer and how much my appreciation is my huge ability to just accept BS.
However;
I wonder how much of this is her doing a good job of playing an insufferable, wild eyed fanatic. I see a character who’s PTSD has blinded her to just about everything. Like, the fact that we see she’s kinda right about some stuff grates cause she has taken everything and jammed it into one particular belief. She’s allowed PTSD to turn herself into a fundamentalist fanatic almost as bad as anything Sauron is.
Also, I would gladly watch a plotless Arondir glowers and flexes show. I just want him to roll his eyes at me.
@Beth:
A lot of it has to do with being a writer. I’m seeing what looks to me like characters in search of a story. (I know the signs, having wandered around lost like that myself.) And when I hear shit like, ‘ a stone sinks because it looks down,’ I mean, FFS. Lightweights straining for profundity. It’s cringe. I’d cut my own throat before I’d write a bullshit line like that.
As for Ms. Clark, I don’t know if it’s the direction or her acting choices that make her come off as petulant and seething 24/7. It’s just so one-note and charmless. She has none of the physicality of, say, Charlize Theron, and none of the gravity of Cate Blanchett. Or look at how Miranda Otto played Eowyn in the LOTR movies – she was frustrated, she was determined, she was a woman overlooked because she was a woman. And she pulled it off. Or Jodie Comer in Killing Eve. Or any number of women in GOT. Or Ripley in Aliens. Or Sarah Conner in Terminator.
Clark reads to me like a woman really pissed that her latte only has one shot of hazelnut. I believe Theron can fight. I believe Miranda Otto can stab a guy. I believe Comer will slit a throat. When Ripley says, ‘Get away from her, you bitch,’ I’m thinking alien mama needs to walk away. But I don’t believe this waif for a minute.
But it’s the writers who wrote the ludicrous snow troll scene where her own platoon of highly-trained (male) elves fall all over themselves like tenpins while Galadriel does it all herself. And it’s the writers who have her jump into the ocean to swim for a few hundred miles. Are they secretly trying to tell us Galadriel is an idiot?
I’ve written ‘strong female characters’ in sci fi, in fantasy, in alt history, even in adult thrillers, and I never had to make men look like clowns to make my female characters their equals. How is it strong to be better than absolute buffoons? It’s condescending, and it is internalized sexism. It’s lazy, clueless writing, and honestly I’m amazed that women aren’t offended. There are women flying fighter jets off aircraft carriers who don’t seem to need all the men to fly into a cliff in order to look capable themselves.
Five seasons of this elven Mary Sue? Not a chance.
@Michael Reynolds:..The Bible could have really used an editor.
May I suggest Asimov’s Guide to the Bible.
Spoiler Alert!
Let’s jump to the last page to see how it ends if you don’t want to read the whole thing.
*should be are
Football and basketball get all the attention, but for my money, women’s volleyball is the best college sport. Incredible athleticism. Fast paced. Spectator proximity to the action. Plus, the costs and logistics of attending make it very approachable. Highly recommended, even if you know little about the sport.
@Michael Reynolds:
Wonderful critique. That’s exactly what lousy writers do. Unfortunately, more and more of them are being hired/published.
@Kathy: I was in a faculty discussion group where that sort of question was asked about me by an unfriendly co-teacher. I shrugged and replied “case in point.” Everyone else laughed while co-teacher glowered.
@OzarkHillbilly: In defense of her neighbors, “safer” is a relative term, but YIKES!
Seems like the market should be coming up with a solution pretty soon…
oh, wait, water is a service not a product.
@gVOR08: Yeah, that and “do onto others as you would have them do onto you” pretty much covers it, I think. –
@OzarkHillbilly: “A whole lot of needless repetition.”
When translated into early 17th Century English. Maybe it reads smoother in Hebrew, I dunno and suspect you don’t either. And don’t get me started on how “clear and concise” US government documents are.
But yeah, I know you’re just being snarky, so I’ll stop now.
@CSK: “that’s a major development.”
Is it like no bacon and no cheese on the nothing burger or more like no grilled onions and no special sauce?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Trump appears to have taken stuff from MaL to Bedminster to keep it from the FBI. I think that’s a fairly big deal.
Not that I’m surprised that a lifetime thief wouldn’t do precisely that, you understand.
@OzarkHillbilly:
How do you shorten baseball games by increasing offense?
@Mister Bluster: “still unfulfilled nearly two thousand years later”
Given the billions of years science holds as the age of the cosmos, 2 thousand years is barely a tick of the sweep second hand of the metaphorical celestial clock. It took 4000+ years to get from Eve naming her son Abel (I have got me a man from The Lord–some say in identification of him being the child God promised to redeem humankind) to the birth of Jesus “in the fullness of time.” Maybe you should read Asimov closer.
Or maybe not.
@CSK: Yeah. If you can prove that was the reason (as opposed to the motive someone ascribes to the action) and if DOJ ever actually prosecutes him (which I’m still an unbeliever on).
And don’t leave out jury nullification or hanging because of a MAGAt in the pool.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Yeah, I know. Rock and a hard place. I’m not sure if I entirely buy Lindsey Graham’s claim that there will be riots in the street if Trump is prosecuted, but it will be hard to keep all the MAGAs off any jury.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:..Maybe you should read Asimov closer.
I read Azimov’s words:
again.
What did I miss?
@Mister Bluster:..What did I miss?
The correct spelling of the author’s name.
Asimov not Azimov.
@Kurtz: Reading the full article explains the change, which shaved about 30 minutes out of the average minor league games in trials, so the increase in offense has been quite marginal.
I lived thru an active shooter incident. I also “saved” my eldest son’s life, in quotes because that whole accident took place in less than 5 or 10 seconds and who can say how close it really was? I only know that I saw my son’s head silhouetted against the headlights of the oncoming cars, and that I prayed for death because I knew I couldn’t get to him in time. Either way, I read these accounts and they hit me in the gut.
Go read the whole of it.
This is insane.
Dunno, methinks that is not the reason for these changes, just the excuse.
@Kurtz:..How do you shorten baseball games…
If this is the goal…then…
>Two strikes and a batter is out.
>Three balls is a walk and the batter advances from home plate to second base. (Batter gets to grab one of the pitcher’s balls as he walks over the pitchers mound on his way to second base.)
>Batter is out if he hits a foul ball no matter what the count is.
>A defensive player may throw the baseball at the baserunner and if the baseball hits the runner the runner is out. (If the baseball hits the base runner in the nuts it counts as two outs and the defensive team is awarded a double play in the stat book.)
>If the away team hits a home run into the stands and a fan throws the baseball back onto the field the batter is out and the run does not count. (If the ball thrown back on the field is caught by a home team player that’s another out.)
>And by all means make all the teams use a bullpen cart!
@Mimai: I really love “little kid” volleyball. The little buggers are so cute, and when they get a real volley going, as clumsy as it may be, the crowd goes WILD!!! Good times. 😛
@Jax: I was up at the Sullivan fairgrounds the other day and saw a banner that made me sad:
.
Why is this necessary?
@Jax: “little kid” sports > “adult” sports. Always and forever. Chasing butterflies. Mining for boogers. Delightful chaos. And the occasional goal, volley, etc.
ps, I enjoyed the pics of your greenhouse awhile back. Hope your daughter is still digging it (heh).
@OzarkHillbilly: You know damn well why it’s necessary. And it’s indeed sad. Adults ruin damn near everything. Ugh…we suck!
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ah, to control soccer moms whose entire families are members of the mob. I recommend watching long enough to see the cop perform a nice (American Football) tackle.
@Michael Reynolds:
The thing that continues to boil my bile is the presumption of the writers that “We can write a better story than Tolkien” and proceed to completely mangle plot and character for no good reason.
Want a female elf who wants to do Sauron in?
Well, go write one; there’d have been plenty with good reason.
But no.
Has to be Galadriel; for the name recognition?
So, they proceed to screw about with Finrod’s death, an important bit of the whole Silmarillion narrative.
They have one of the elven high lords/ladies unable to order a ship to turn about, because her younger cousin has decided something for whatever reason?
Miss that in the narrative Galadriel has upped sticks and decamped to Lorien or thereabouts centuries previous.
And that she had good reason to know that going on-on-one against the Big S would be unlikely to go well for her, seeing as she was best friends (we assume) with one of only two persons to face off with Sauron and win.
And said Luthien Tinuviel had a bit of an edge, being daughter of a demi-goddess and all.
Bah!