Happy New Year’s Eve to all of our blog family. We will be spending New Year’s Eve at home this year — preparing for our annual New Year’s party on January 1st. I will be toasting to everyone on our extended blog family.
Tonight Leslie and I will share our traditional bottle of Schramsberg Sparkling wine. This is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago, Leslie and I eloped on New Year’s Eve after eight years years of dating. (There is an ongoing dispute over calculating the event, I insist that this is our 22nd anniversary but Leslie insists on not counting the eight years of dating). We always celebrate with a bottle of Schramsberg. This was the bottle I bought after we got hitched at Alexandria City Hall. I used my house school ring to seal the deal.
The kids made it to midnight and watched the painful display of Anderson Cooper trying to restrain Kathy Griffin. It turns out the Mayan Apocalypse merely predicted Griffin’s appearance on New Year’s Eve. This included her attempt to throw cash into the crowd – a moronic idea that had to be physically stopped by Anderson to avert a disaster. If this was Griffin’s idea of a joke, it came across as an unhinged, unfunny person trying to fill time. The kids insisted that we turn to NBC instead.
We are expecting 200 friends to share in Wasabi Bloody Marys) and our traditional soup: The Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson Soup. I have smoked two turkeys to put into the soup. I also have enough Wasabi to light up Tokyo.
Everyone drive carefully and have fun. I will be giving a toast to our entire blog family tonight (and, of course, my marriage).
Elaine, The stats I gave were a CNN poll. Gallup has 55% of Americans believing the waterboarding WAS justified and 51% still believing it should be used. As I have told you and others. I gave up doing links when I did one a couple years back that I believed legit and it was not, many folks got a nasty virus and I felt HORRIBLE! I was taught to never make the same mistake twice.
nick,
Can’t back up the numbers of Americans that you claimed had no problem with waterboarding?
I don’t do links..just Google it!
Smom,
Don’t forget bdaman. He self-identified as mixed heritage (I don’t recall what he said the specifics were).
The bottom line is most people don’t say. No one discourages them from doing so. No one encourages them to do so. I think that’s fair and in line with the anonymity policy: people are allowed to control how much they reveal about themselves.
And I have it on good authority that eniobob does a fair amount of lurking these days for reasons of his own related to simply having outside priorities. I sure do wish he’d get back to commenting more though. He’s a good dude. Erica just vanished though. Too bad too. She was a good contributor.
Elaine, As I mentioned previously, in order to achieve diversity an organization, company, blog, often need to be proactive. That’s not happening. I’ve been trying, but the more indifference and zero effort I see the more trepidations I have about bringing someone into this forum.
Nick,
Can you provide me with links to the CNN and Gallup poll links?
nick,
Just because no people commenting on this blog have identified themselves as black or Hispanic during the time you have been a regular here doesn’t prove that none of the regulars are black or Hispanic.
I’d add that no one is preventing anyone who wants to comment on this blog from commenting on this blog.
“You don’t pounce so maybe you don’t see it, I don’t know.”
Ah, but alas mespo does pounce on illogical statements and bad or distorted facts. It’s one of his more endearing traits. He does not suffer fools gladly – a common trait among the guest bloggers and quite a few of the regulars. That is the nature of free speech. It’s part of what keeps the numbers of pure trolls and ideologues down too. Some people can’t take having their assertions put to scrutiny, others can, some relish it. It’s not a sport for the timid or those uncomfortable with challenge. Many people are challenge averse. Many are not. Both types come and go. Some come back, some don’t. A few stay for long periods. It is the ebb and flow of the tide. It is simply the way of things in a free speech forum.
And what Elaine said. You have no way of knowing the race of any commenter here unless they reveal it by choice. Neither do we GB’s and we have editorial access. For example, I’ve talked to Tony C. hundreds of times. I have no idea what color he is. He’s never said to my recollection. Nor do I care. It’s not relevant to material discussions, debates, or arguments.
Nick, Eniobob and Erica posted regularly at one time. Both of them self identified as African Americans. She left the blog, and eniobob rarely posts these days.
I will, Elaine. What’s your response to Gallup and CNN?
nick,
It wasn’t a Mother Jones article. It was written by the Common Dreams staff. You’ve got the two different articles that I posted excerpts from and links to confused. Check them both out.
Elaine, No one has identified themselves as black or Hispanic here in the 5-6 months I’ve been here. Do you know any? Have there ever been any to your knowledge? I would think my laments over several posts would have brought them out if there were. Maybe there are 1 or 2 and they don’t feel welcomed. Based on the lack of concern expressed by anyone else, could you blame them? Wait..ID did express some concern.
(Nick, I have been mispresumed a lot, given that my name is gender neutral and I have never divulged anything about my ethnicity so it may well be the same for many others here. I dont know how you go about trying to force diversity when it may already be here. I don;t recall how I first found out about this blog but it just came up, most probably, when I was googling some fact or story and I came out of curiousity. I did not come because I went to a white search, black search, man, woman, lgtb, native american etc search. )
Otteray Scribe, I hope you enjoyed your pizza and I wish you a reversal of bad luck for the next 100 years. (But you’re allowed to eat black-eyed peas on every OTHER day of the year, right?)
When my kid was little I hosted a “worst pizza” contest for him and his friends. The top ten “worst pizzas” were:
10. Chicken Liver and pine nut pizza
9. Mashed sardines and grapefruit pizza
8. Salted Herring and squishy tofu pizza
7. Lima bean and blue cheese pizza
6. Pigs feet and plantain pizza
5. Tripe and chitlins pizza
4. Diced okra and coffee bean pizza
3. Scrapple and horseradish pizza
2. Fried locust and bitter chocolate pizza
1 Raw krill and cabbage pizza
But I hope yours for New Years was tomato sauce and cheese pizza!
Elaine, Thanks for the heads up. I was just so happy to see SOMETHING substantive I didn’t see it was Mother Jones. I’ll go w/ Gallup poll in Nov. 2011 that had 50% of Americans supporting the use of waterboarding. The breakdown was Dems 44% Independents 44% and Rep 69%. CNN had 54% approving but I didn’t see a party affiliation breakdown. But thanks for the effort @ least.
nick,
How do you know that the “anonymous” people who comment on this blog are “lily white?”
(Nick, sadly it can go along with MS (mine is from a birth defect, no MS thank goodness). The neurontin does sometimes cause me to not be able to find my words but I have been on it for probably decades by now and I too have it pretty well managed.) (Sry all for the OT specifics )
mespo, I’ve seen a few folks leave here who in my estimation didn’t commit the mortal sins you state. You could almost hear them saying, “F@ck this..I don’t need this bombardment.” You don’t pounce so maybe you don’t see it, I don’t know. But what I find most stifling is the lilly whiteness of the commenters. If you really want diversity it is evidenced by actions, one needs to be proactive. I just don’t see it here.
nick,
I think you missed the point of my posting an excerpt from that Common Dreams article earlier. You had said that “50-54% of Americans have no problem w/ waterboarding.”
Here’s an excerpt from that excerpt which you probably missed:
“In 2005, only 16 percent approved of waterboarding suspected terrorists, while an overwhelming majority (82 percent) thought it was wrong to strap people on boards and force their heads underwater to simulate drowning. Now, 25 percent of Americans believe in waterboarding terrorists, and only 55 percent think it’s wrong.”
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/10/02-3
I wouldn’t say that 25% is anywhere close to 50-54%…would you? Do you still think it was a “Good substantive link” that I provided?
nick:
“This is a good blog, as I’ve said many times. However, it is insular in many respects.”
************************
Insular thinking is like the blind-spot in front of your eyes. You may know it is there intellectually but it’s hard to see it for yourself. Good blogs are always welcoming folks. We have typically been loathe to suffer trolls and ideologues at all. As a result we have very few and like Ol’ Blue Eyes said, “too few to mention.” Your observations are not trollish and good for the blog. On rare occasion the guest bloggers get very protective of this little cyberpub that we’ve come to enjoy on a daily basis. It’s just human nature to protect what you like.
In 2008 when I found the blog, there were four regular commenters — Deeply Worried, Rafflaw, Patty C, and me. The typical numer of comments were between 6-10. If you get the chance you can read some of those erudite discussions. The only plodding wheel was me. We had wonderful dialogues and daily interaction. It was fun but when the blog grew it got better with different perspectives. To keep thriving you’ve got to have new blood and that’s why we welcome all opinions so long as they are willing to face a little scrutiny. It’s a small price to pay for the intellectual stimulation and the gratifying displays of human decency I read most every day.
Professor Turley has created something special here. It’s gets better with age and growth.
Mark,
I especially miss DW and Patty C., add in Bob esq. and those were the mainstays when I came aboard. Remember though why, and how Patty was driven off. As I remember it someone kept complaining that Patty was victimizing her, where from my perspective, at least, it was the other way around.
Elaine, I guess I can give your free ticket to someone else.