Site News and How a Right Wing Freakout About Cough Syrup Helped Me Understand Right Wing Arguments Against Immigration and Misogynist Death Threats


Satanism. In a bottle.

Timothy Whiteman (No, I’m not making that name up. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an on-the-nose writer name in all my time writing for Sadly, No!), The Wingnut Examiner.com:
Trayvon’s Skittles, Arizona Iced Tea and something called “Purple Drank”

So as the overlong and bizarrely descriptive title notes, we’ve made some big changes behind the scenes that we’d let you all know about.

The biggest news?

We have moderators now! Yup, Sadly, No! has finally grown up and put on its big boy pants and upgraded some of you to the super-envious position of mucking out our shit so us glorious front-pagers do not have to stain our royal spats whilst we fop around on our gilded carriages.

So yeah, Big Bad Bald Bastard, bbkf, Oregon Beer Snob, and VCarlson have joined us behind the scenes to help take care of business and so far have been doing a fantastic job that we on the writing team are greatly appreciative of. Who knows, later on, we might even fix the blog roll or our contact page or stop running the site on daily sacrifices to Vishnu. The sky’s the limit, baby!

Additionally?

We might try organizing some meatspace reader meetups for those who are interested in it. The conversation in the last thread about a potential future Chicago meetup makes me think a West Coast meetup sometime could be fun.

Beyond that, we on the front page have been using Google+ Hangouts to confer and plot our dread master Soro’s will, so that’s the cheap and free option sometime in the future if people are interested in doing an e-meetup sometime.

Also, we are planning to update some of the other pages of the site so that they include modern additions.

But enough about all that. Let’s jump straight to the wingnuttery!

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • EEEEEEE! Trayvon Martin wasn’t some kid bringing home a drink and some candy for his little brother! He was a black person! I mean DRUGGIE! Doing vile evil drugs like… cough syrup because… if it turned out he used a traditional young-person method of getting drunk on the cheap and without having to show ID despite their being literally zero evidence this ever occurred then it would mean he was a criminal and therefore perfectly legal to shoot… right?

This conspiracy theory fascinates me. Hell, it fascinates me enough to continue circling back to the George Zimmerman atrocity and his lynching of 17 year old Trayvon Martin even though I feel so done on the affair, it’s in danger of physically hurting.

And I think it’s most fascinating for me because it helps me put together a huge number of wingnut leaps in logics that had never felt quite… “complete” before.

I mean, yeah, this is one more piece of the general “Trayvon Martin was super black. I mean, iced tea, motherfucking iced tea? And skittles? Taste the rainbow? Rainbow Coalition? I mean, he might as well have had an afro, read Langston Hughes poetry, listened to Miles Davis, and watched Spike Lee movies! Wake up sheeple!”. Just like the bullshit surrounding Rachel Jeantel, the nonsense with finding “darker” pictures of the kid, and freaking out about the hoodie, one more argument that there is something inherently nefarious and life-threatening about the existing of black people who do not live their lives in constant apology for ever reminding their white neighbors of their unfortunate skin affliction.

And of course, from there, we get the usual reinforcement of the long-running conservative propaganda wherein blackness is sold as socially literally equaling “criminality”. It’s the whole business with all the blather of Trayvon Martin being a “thug”. The wink wink nudge nudge bullshit surrounding “welfare queens” “getting away with things” with “your money”. The focus on a particular subset of rap (one ironically built around deconstructing the causes of the particular criminal problems facing predominately African-American communities). The entire fucking War on Drugs and its preferential enforcement on black minor “offenders”. It’s another piece of a long puzzle where “black person” is sold as “criminal” in the eyes of the media so often that it becomes unconscious on all levels of society. The shop owner wanting to protect his merchandise from the “suspicious” person who walked in the door. The mother who moves to the other side of the street because a “gang” of young black men walking down the street hanging out and laughing like any other group of kids is a “sign of danger”. The cop who decides to pull over this random guy because “he might be a suspect” or “he doesn’t belong in this neighborhood”. Or in this case, the paranoid psychotic who decides that he’s going to solve the “criminal” menace of people not like him moving into his perfect little gated community universe that was supposed to be all-white and MOMMY!!!

Which leads to the bit that’s suddenly clicked for me.

This is the right-wing’s current argument for why a kid needed to die. This. It doesn’t matter that it’s untrue, a sick ghoulish smearing of a murder victim in order to score “ideological points” for Team White People. Or rather it does, but it’s not as revealing as the fact that this is where they’ve gone.

They’re trying to argue that if Trayvon Martin had been drinking cough syrup and something so sweet it can barely cover the medicine taste because kids do stupid shit when we have such fucked up cultural values around alcohol and the teaching of how to imbibe it safely and responsibly, then that would make it legal, or at least morally right to kill him.

That if he’d planned to do a drug. Any drug, that that would on its own be obvious proof of why a 17-year old had to die.

And that’s the part that resonates. That this would be transparent proof for the wingnut. And for them, it would be for reasons other than the “he was black and needed to die” primary reason. That of course if Trayvon Martin had broken a law, any law, no matter how minor or had done a drug, any drug, then that justifies any possible reaction against him.

Cause all drugs are all drugs. But more importantly all crimes are all crimes and the punishment for any crime is death.

And of course, the corollary that any one who provides the carrying out of this sentence for this transgression has not committed any crime because they were carrying out JUSTICE! (and together we can be justice)

Which frankly explains so goddamn much that I’m slapping my forehead for not putting it together earlier. It explains how it just became “natural” that threatening the wrong pile of inanimate stuff could earn you an instant death sentence by some middle class psychotic with full legal pass. And frankly a bizarre amount of social support. It explains why torture became super cool so quickly against anyone even remotely associated with “turrists” and why so few seemed to even be able to process how the torturers could have broken any laws.

And yes, as my post title intimates, it explains why wingnuts, when summoning their arguments for why we can’t fix our broken immigration system circle around the following argument:

“THEY BROKE THE LAW! THEY’RE ILLEGAL! THEY DESERVE NOTHING! BECAUSE THEY BROKE THE LAW! LAWWWWWWWWW!!!!”

Because the idea that there are bad laws. Or laws so structured that it becomes nearly impossibly to navigate them legally is just baffling. There are laws… as long as they are properly passed by the right people and so on. And that’s all that should matter as a public argument. Because right-wingers are authoritarians at heart and thus think that appeals to authority are the only appeals that matter (which is the same reason why they try and discredit facts they don’t like by smearing the “famous” people they claim represent the fact.

And sure, the fact that it’s brown and asian people wanting out of areally bad trap is the more compelling reason for these fuckwits, but that just leads to the last big connection.

That to the right wing, “law” doesn’t mean the same thing as us.

It doesn’t encompass all legal laws (laws against what religious organizations are allowed to do, laws against tax evasion, spousal abuse, or child abuse, laws against the rape of minors, laws against rape, laws prohibiting certain forms of political speech such as terrorism, the laws of elections). And they incorporate a HUGE number of what the right-wing considers “natural laws”.

I.e. A “natural” hierarchy that just so happens to resemble 1960s television programs about what America looked like. White people above black people. Women chattel of men. Queers ensconced in the closet and kept away from the eyes of “decent people”. Religious people assumed to be every single person on the planet. And that religion a bland white christianity.

So when a black teenager was walking through a gated community in the suburbs (and everyone knows that those are supposed to be white neighborhoods that were GOOD and CLEAN before “they” started invading), that is a CRIME. And the punishment for all crimes is death.

And it’s the same with a whole number of other right-wing flare-ups. The murderous hatred of Obama for breaking a whole flotilla of “laws” by becoming the President of the United States. The murderous hate-on for immigrants who don’t feel they should continue to have to live in an at-risk population of second-class non-citizenship because white people miss slavery. The violent often lethal resistance to gay and trans* people being out in public and dating and loving without fear in their hearts.

And of course, again as my post title revealed, the reason for all the death threats women who are present on the internet receive, as is quickly becoming the topic of conversation owing to how bad the problem is getting.

When these women exist online and break the natural LAWS by being human beings, with opinions on the sexism in our society or try and change things for the better without involving men or even by critiquing previous male behavior, they need to be punished. And they need to be punished for breaking a LAW.

And since the main punishment for breaking a wingnut law is death, of course most of the threats end up circling around death threats in one way or another.

And sure, they’ll threaten and mete out “lesser” punishments. Abuse, battery, rape, harassment. But you’ll note that the wingnuts often view these as a kindness and literally can’t understand why people would object to these tactics or find them problematical considering it’s the “nice” option to enforcing these all-important natural LAWS.

And unfortunately, this problem is probably going to get worse before it gets better. Because the world is drifting further and further away from these “natural” LAWS, from bending to the whims of greedy white male fucks just because they threaten us with violence, discrimination, -isms, and legalized murder if we try and act as if the world was better. Because the world they are trying to cling onto is not only ceasing to exist, but also ceasing to matter as a fantasy.

Sure, white people can perpetuate the bigotries, but their ability to dominate political conversations entirely with their fears are rapidly coming to an end.

And to the right-wingers. This is the most egregious form of betrayal of the LAW. And they’ll kill the whole damn country if they can get away with it to “put it right”.

And so all we need to do is keep putting things wrong and working to fix things so that the only law that matters is aligned with justice instead of this twisted broken idea of the LAW.

Easy, right?


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Sadly, No! Leaving you on consistently happy notes since 1914. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


 

Comments: 394

 
 
 

Damn, runner-up…

 
 

Jenny McCarthy thinks vaccines are bad, but has no problems with shilling for tobacco companies.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Shorter every whingnut: I AM THE LAW

 
 

Respect mah authoritah!

 
 

If Trayvon was krunked on cough syrup, wouldn’t that have made him less of a threat since he’d be drowsy?

 
 

There’s a columnist at the Chicago Tribune whom I really like, or liked, but he seems to be turning into Richard Cohen. He’s always had an inexplicable fondness for guns and gun nuts, and now he’s gone completely off a cliff with the Martin case. He really, honestly believes Zimmerman is some sort of martyr. His latest thing is comparing Zimmerman to every good Samaritan who collars a (black, naturally) purse-snatcher. His latest such post was headlined, I shit you not, “Another shameful vigilante!” and consisted of nothing but a link to one such account and the words “Let the opprobrium roll!”

Very, very sad to see.

 
 

I just sayin’ letting BBBB behind the curtain will cause trouble. He’ll be foraging all your plants.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

I don’t do anything that I consider wrong. As for the almost infinite number of things that don’t fall under that umbrella, if they’re “illegal” I refrain from doing them if the inconvenience I could conceivably incur would be unacceptable to me. I guess this makes me the opposite of a wingnut.

Of course, unlike them, I realize that laws change with time and culture. Whether I recognize them as binding on me is totally determined by my own sense of right and wrong. Just for starters, however, any law code where the most serious “crime” against “property” could possibly carry a heavier penalty than the least serious crime against people is invalid on its face, from top to bottom. So our current statute book is absolutely not binding on me, because I reject it root and branch.

 
 

It makes me feel very old to say that I’m in favor of moderation.

 
 

If Trayvon was krunked on cough syrup, wouldn’t that have made him less of a threat since he’d be drowsy?

Is the logic that he’d already done it or that he was going to? Because it wasn’t on the toxicology report.

 
 

“Bitter Scribe said,
August 3, 2013 at 21:52

There’s a columnist at the Chicago Tribune…

I so wish Mike Royko was still around. He’d have a good perspective on this. With the memory of discrimination seen by the ethnic populations of Chicago he could give some real perspective.

p.s. Cerberus, thanks for the excellent work and certainly this is a masterpiece in TOE of the wingnuts.

 
 

I so wish Mike Royko was still around.

My father worked in downtown Chicago and once ran into Royko at a convenience store.

He said that Royko gave him such a dirty look as if to say “Don’t you dare recognize me.”

 
 

My father worked in downtown Chicago and once ran into Royko at a convenience store.

He said that Royko gave him such a dirty look as if to say “Don’t you dare recognize me.”

Yeah, he was a crabby piece of work. But I miss him, especially compared with the little lump of pork fat who took his place and who thinks you’re the racist for not laughing at his “Obama Chia pet head” jokes.

 
 

I, for one, welcome our new jackbooted thug overlords.

I mean, you know, the good kind of thugs. You know. Not with the Skittles and all.

 
 

Royko was okay if you met him in a bar at night but he could be a bit……….prickly.

He gave a friend of mine some good career advice but I also remember a couple of times when he had to be asked to leave a joint. Which naturally made us love him all the more.

 
 

I don’t think he was the influence of anything, but if you do believe without any evidence that he was heavily sedated, that makes Zimmerman look like a bigger wimp.

 
 

The cop who decides to pull over this random guy because “he might be a suspect” or “he doesn’t belong in this neighborhood”
Even when the “random” guy is a police chief: http://www.nydailynews.com/plainclothes-officers-trouble-didn-recognize-off-duty-chief-article-1.327540

 
 

Moderation is theft!

 
 

I believe in moderation in all things except moderation. And beer.

You should get Another Kiwi on the job; I understand that he lives in a weird and unfashionable time zone.

 
Smarter Than Your Average Bear
 

But more importantly all crimes are all crimes and the punishment for any crime is death.

Kinda sometimes make you want to meet up with one of them as they are smoking a spliff or drinking in public etc and then pulling out a gun and telling them they have to die because they are committing a crime. Then when they have finished pissing and shitting their pants begging for mercy you pull the trigger only to reveal to them ut really a lighter, or it pops out a flag that say have a nice day asshole. Then you walk away saying Thanks you made my day.

 
 

You should get Another Kiwi on the job Oh yeah I’ll be like the nightwatchperson walking around the darkened warehouse with a torch and be kilt by aliens.
I don’t think … Wait… is there a clipboard involved?

 
 

Well let’s get serious about this absurd argument then, and connect the obvious fat-assed bloated DOT, namely, Mr. Rush Limbaugh, tried and convicted drug abuser of hillbilly heroin. Particularly as poor Trayvon is already dead, what’s the further loss in stringing up Mr. Fat Ass Limbaugh from the
nearest hangin’ tree? Just fuckin’ saying. Meanwhile and by the way, I predict a sudden waning of interest in Mr. Zimmerman, as he rockets around the country from dumbassery to further dumbassery. He was always a loose cannon. Now he’s THEIR loose cannon. Hopefully he holes the yacht below the water line.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

So yeah, Big Bad Bald Bastard, bbkf, Oregon Beer Snob, and VCarlson have joined us behind the scenes to help take care of business and so far have been doing a fantastic job that we on the writing team are greatly appreciative of

The Mod Squard!

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I just sayin’ letting BBBB behind the curtain will cause trouble. He’ll be foraging all your plants.

Dinner tonight will be a purslane, wood sorrel, and dandelion salad with diced tomatoes, basil, goat feta, chopped olives and pita… a half foraged/half store bought bounty.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Oh yeah I’ll be like the nightwatchperson walking around the darkened warehouse with a torch and be kilt by aliens.
I don’t think … Wait… is there a clipboard involved?

And, as if the clipboard wasn’t enough, you get an orange jumpsuit!

 
 

you get an orange jumpsuit! Swoon, I will be a man in uniform!!

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

I love a uni in man-form!

 
 

I don’t do anything that I consider wrong. As for the almost infinite number of things that don’t fall under that umbrella, if they’re “illegal” I refrain from doing them if the inconvenience I could conceivably incur would be unacceptable to me. I guess this makes me the opposite of a wingnut.

Of course, unlike them, I realize that laws change with time and culture. Whether I recognize them as binding on me is totally determined by my own sense of right and wrong. Just for starters, however, any law code where the most serious “crime” against “property” could possibly carry a heavier penalty than the least serious crime against people is invalid on its face, from top to bottom. So our current statute book is absolutely not binding on me, because I reject it root and branch.

Very interesting, and I concur. Rev. Battleaxe (esp. in his 2nd paragraph) has raised some important considerations that do suggest he’s the opposite of a wingnut.

 
 

I demand Moderate Kittens!

Also D.C. meetups. They’ll be the Elitiest!

Also, 2, I officially announce my one woman campaign to cause Panic and Despair via the strategic placement of Skittles.

Also, Part the 3d, it would be funny if Chris Rock were to do a cover of Pour Some Sugar on Me only with Pour Some ‘Tussin on it, instead.

So, what is everyone else drinking tonight?

 
 

I came to the same epiphany about two years ago upon reading a comment from my wingnut uncle on Facebook about police brutality against OWS to the effect that OWS was “a mob” that basically deserved whatever it got, and “tee hee, anarchists don’t believe in rules and laws anyway, do they?”

There are just different kinds of people in the world, and the wrong kind of people deserve whatever the right people choose to enforce on them.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I demand Moderate Kittens!

My M.O. this week was basically to disallow the troll (and there’s pretty much just one, with an occasional drive-by or a visit from Becky) a toehold on the comment section, to basically put him on notice that he has no standing here.

There were two broad categories of deleted posts- Dennis ‘bating and Dennis-baiting.

 
 

But more importantly all crimes are all crimes and the punishment for any crime is death.

That’s pretty much the fundamentalist Christian position. All of us are guilty in the eyes of God, none of us deserve anything but death, because all of humanity is inherently sinful, evil, fallen… and also completely unable to save itself, no matter how much it tries, because we’re just too flawed.

The only thing you can do is accept the salvation Jesus offers you even though you don’t deserve it… e.g, Join The Tribe… then he’ll forget about all your sins. And then, you’re no longer one of the sinful, evil, fallen ones. Now you’re one of the righteous agents of God.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

To show you how pathetic the resident troll is, here’s a taste of 7/31 and 8/1:

Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 0:00
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 0:13
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 2:16
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Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 12:31
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Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 13:25
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 13:29
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 13:39
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 13:45
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 14:05
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 14:10
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 14:16
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 14:31
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 14:52
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 15:31
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 15:54
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 16:17
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 16:22
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 17:34
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 22:04
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 22:45
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 23:16
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 23:19
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 23:30
Submitted on 2013/07/31 at 23:36
Submitted on 2013/08/01 at 0:35
Submitted on 2013/08/01 at 11:52

Now here’s the kicker, after he figures out that his milkshake has been drunk, but is trying to put a brave face on his lack of agency… this comment demonstrates what a pathetic, life-lacking loser he is:

Submitted on 2013/08/01 at 18:50
Hey! It’s better than trollz.

Been busy most of yesterday and today, apologize for the absence.

Cue trombone

 
 

Nibblin’ on spite cake,
watchin’ the sun bake;
All of those tourists covered with oil.
Drinking my six-pack I’m okay jack.
Smell those shrimp
They’re beginnin’ to boil.

Wasted away again in Trolling all the time,
Searchin’ for my lost shaker of Galt.
Some people claim that there’s a snark blog to blame,
But I know it’s nobody’s fault.

 
 

I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack threads on fire in the great Usenet flamewars. I watched adbots twitter in the dark near the Spamhäuser Gate. All those… comments… will be lost in time, like pee… in… a hot tub. Time… to get a life.

 
 

Jesus, give B4 a taste of power along with purslane?
And then subjecting poor bbkf, OBS, and VC to the first drafts of a person who would need a stepladder to reach deplorable?

It will all end in tears, I know it…

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Jesus, give B4 a taste of power along with purslane?

I can control it, I can keep it tamped down… oh, snap, I can’t contain it.

 
 

Shakezula said,
August 4, 2013 at 2:32

So, what is everyone else drinking tonight?

Seagrams Lime-Twist Gin and grapefruit juice.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I’m working an all nighter… it’s nothing stronger than tea for me.

 
 

Dear To Whom It May Concern,

Please consider this laurel, and hearty handshake, as my application to not be turned into a kitten when I blather about bigfoot.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
paleotectonics

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

New Amsterdam gin, chilled, with a mumbled “Vermouth” as it is poured. Same as it ever was.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Please consider this laurel, and hearty handshake, as my application to not be turned into a kitten when I blather about bigfoot.

Josh St. Lawrence was, I bleev, never in danger of kittening.

 
 

New Amsterdam gin, chilled, with a mumbled “Vermouth” as it is poured. Same as it ever was.

Produce?

 
 

All those comments, gone, like pee in a hot tub.

 
 

Came back from the lake no fish and 3 drinks heavier.

Three more drinks at home whilst grilling, the Student has become the Master. The Cycle is complete.

I will deal with the hangover on the lake tomorrow. Ideally, there will be fish involved.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I will deal with the hangover on the lake tomorrow. Ideally, there will be fish involved.

Now now, is it ever really about the fish?

 
 

Mango and honey, dilute, with ice and vodka.

 
 

So, what is everyone else drinking tonight?

Busch beer. Head for the mountains.
.

 
 

So, what is everyone else drinking tonight?

Pastis before dinner and red zinfandel with dinner (I made pizza).

 
 

Some people claim that there’s a snark blog to blame
But I know, it’s my own damn fault.
Yes, and some people claim that there’s a snark blog to blame
And I know it’s my own damn fault.

 
 

Well fuck … could it be that now I …I … I finally I get to put Lulznir, Pwner Of Noobs up on E-Bay?
(scabbard encrusted in rubies with sheath made from authentic cured Nazi-skin sold separately)
A fun blade, to be sure — but oh sweet Cthulhu, what a frickin’ toll on the spine to lug about.

Also too:

All we need to do is keep putting things wrong?
Not even just having awoken can explain just how profoundly woogly that declaration scans for me.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: FNORD

 
 

Major Kong we haz a bottle of Red Zinfandel and are unsure as to what to drink it with. Straws or glasses? No, what sort of food. Whaddyarekkon?

 
 

Drinking Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Made a batch of blonde ale today.
Had a couple Lammsbraus earlier, damned fine beer.

Cheers to the new overlords! A fine crew.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Well fuck … could it be that now I …I … I finally I get to put Lulznir, Pwner Of Noobs up on E-Bay?
(scabbard encrusted in rubies with sheath made from authentic cured Nazi-skin sold separately)
A fun blade, to be sure — but oh sweet Cthulhu, what a frickin’ toll on the spine to lug about.

Nah, there’s plenty of gobshites to gobsmack on these here intert00bz. As long as Doughbob Loadpants draws breath, there will be plenty of targets for your blade to cut… snicker-snark.

 
 

Major Kong we haz a bottle of Red Zinfandel and are unsure as to what to drink it with. Straws or glasses? No, what sort of food.

Red Zin is your burgers, pizza and bbq wine. Food that you might otherwise have a beer with. They tend to be big, flavorful reds.

They would also work OK with pasta (red sauces). The Italians have the same grape and call it Primitivo.

 
 

Hmm, he hmm’ed.

You may have a point … although bringing realism to a wingnut thread feels like taking 80s Madonna posters & garlic bread to a conclave of vampires: obvious cheap shot action on demand … not to mention that it’s usually a memetic Cheetos Buffet, because they can never employ the time-management or lucidity to STFU about the newest pseudocaust of the day.

/”snicker-snark” = why didn’t I think of that

 
 

Fine, I will supply my own kitten!

Here’s one horsin’ around.

Speaking of kittens, does anyone have suggestions for toys that will entertain a very smart, very athletic cat?

There are only so many hours he can spend chewing on his lazy sister and knocking things off high shelves. We’re pretty sure this S.O.B. has started opening the fridge. (Perhaps a trap for his lazy and greedy sister.) I’m concerned he’s going to get depressed and develop harmful habits such as excessive grooming. Or constructing death lasers. Help?

 
 

AND for the record, I have not been drinking ‘Tussin.

And for the B side, I do not think it is possible for Dogfish Head to make a bad beer. Midas Touch is incredibly gimmicky, but me like. OK, leaving intertubes. We haz to go to Costco & BAss Pro in the morn.

 
 

Or constructing death lasers. Help?

Assuming you have tried a $6 life laser, already? Some cats go apeshit over chasing that cheap, red dot; other ignore it, entirely. But it’s worth the dollar store laser pointer to find out.
.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Speaking of kittens, does anyone have suggestions for toys that will entertain a very smart, very athletic cat?

At the risk of sounding like a monster… squirrels.

 
 

does anyone have suggestions for toys that will entertain a very smart, very athletic cat?

Out cat likes very simple little toys that she can pick up and carry around in her mouth. She has one little mouse that is her favorite and I’ve had to glue the covering back on it countless times over the years.

Most cats seem to have very short attention spans when it comes to toys. They get bored easily.

 
 

Saccrifices to Vishnu? What happened to the hamsters? ……… oh

 
 

Most cats seem to have very short attention spans when it comes to toys. They get bored easily.

My guys like paper grocery bags, cardboard boxes, and plastic rings off drink containers, more than anything you’d buy at PetSmart. Oh, and string.

Only one (Curly, the Fat Tabby) digs the laser. L.E. will watch it, but never chases it; Curly goes apeshit trying to catch that red dot!
.

 
 

Thanks Major Kong, we don’t get much Zinny here what with being on the edge of the known universe.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Thanks Major Kong, we don’t get much Zinny here what with being on the edge of the known universe.

What sort of wine varieties are common to your antipodean homeland?

 
 

FUCK THAT SHIT! Pabst! BLUE! RIBBON!
.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

FUCK THAT SHIT! Pabst! BLUE! RIBBON!

Hipster!

 
 

Hipster!

Blue Velvet hipster, thankyouverrymuch!
.

 
 

Wish *I* had a nitrous tank.

 
 

My cat got wiggy when we brought a young female feline into the house and has never been the same since. He suffers from under grooming, its rly bad.

 
 

My cat got wiggy when we brought a young female feline into the house and has never been the same since. He suffers from under grooming, its rly bad.

Can you undo this move? Some kittehs just can’t co-exist with the wrong kitteh.
.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

My cat got wiggy when we brought a young female feline into the house and has never been the same since. He suffers from under grooming, its rly bad.

That’s a shame. We have three kittehs on the job, a brother/sister act, about four and a half years old, and an old male, about fourteen years old. The males used to get in spats, but have seemed to settle into an attitude of frosty detente. The girl, who can be a real pain in the ass (she’s really pretty and comical as hell, so she gets cut a lot of slack), likes to take an occasional swat at the older cat, just to see the poor feller jump.

 
 

We gave the female to a loving home after trying to make it work for two years and he did recover somewhat but had nearly doubled in size and never resumed grooming.

Only reason we took in the other cat was ’cause she belonged to Mrs kg’s dad who died. She’s a sweet cat and wish I kept her instead.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Only reason we took in the other cat was ’cause she belonged to Mrs kg’s dad who died. She’s a sweet cat and wish I kept her instead.

Loyalty is one of those virtues which can certainly complicate one’s life.

 
 

🙁

Kittehs are easily damaged by circumstance. it would seem.
.

 
 

we don’t get much Zinny here

Really AK, you’re not missing a thing. Pretty hard to make a good Zin and nobody bothers. Always astonished at how well it sells at catering gigs, sometimes more than half of the wine bill.

 
 

Pretty hard to make a good Zin and nobody bothers.

You wound me sir.

If you want good Zin just remember the “Three R’s”

Ridge, Ravenswood and Rosenblum

Ridge is probably the best of the bunch, and priced accordingly. Norman Vineyards also makes a good Zin but they’re hard to find.

If you want good Zin be prepared to spend $15 or more. Most of the $8-$10 ones are just “fruit bombs”.

 
 

You wound me sir.

Sorry buddy. Talking mass market. It is a difficult grape but has potential, how’s that?

 
 

And while I’m being drinks judge, Mirror Pond is a really great beer, maybe the best session beer one can buy.

 
 

Zin’s kind of an interesting grape. For the longest time they thought it was actually native to California.

Turns out it was brought over from Italy (Primitivo) and actually started out in Hungary.

 
 

I know too many Hungarians to think it came from anywhere else.

 
 

Here, in our valley at the ass-end of Africa, it’s mostly Shiraz and Cabernet. Apparently, we Do Reds. Do not expect any fine wine talking from me. I’m a teetotaller.(sp?)

 
 

So, what is everyone else drinking tonight?

Lithuanian country beer. Judging from the flavour, the brewer whacks off into the fermentation vat.

 
 

I have a very special hatred for the words “purple drank”. It’s the first time I got a taste of overt racism aimed at me.

I may be a white boy from canada, but when someone suggests that my WoW character, a dark-skinned human woman, likes watermelon and grape drank, I can tell that they’re just DYING to call me “nigger”.

Even when I was the one healing them in a dungeon.

 
 

Rats. I haven’t had any alcohol in 30 years and now I’m thinking fondly of a Dubonnet over ice as an aperitif -my ex-favourite tipple. Do they still make that stuff?

 
 

leftwingfox — Online gaming has brought me into contact with some real cretins. There was alot of Zimmerman verdict triumphalism in chat channels and forums. Probably alot more than I saw, because I quickly tuned out.

 
 

According to the Wiki, Zinfandel is apparently from Croatia(genetic analysis) and it is 10% of all wine grapes grown here in California.

It’s grown on the coast, in Amador county, Mendicino, and, of course, Sonoma county.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Most of the zin in Cali goes into that godawful “white zinfandel” fruit punch crap. Having spent some time looking for good rosés I wonder if you couldn’t make a decent rosé with zin IF YOU WERE ACTUALLY OUT TO MAKE A GOOD ROSE.

 
 

Beringer makes a Zinfandel Rose, as well as a Zinfandel Chardonnay Rose.

Pedroncelli has what they call a Dry Rose Zinfandel, so you might be able to find either brand at your local liquor store.

 
 

Online gaming has brought me into contact with some real cretins

I gave up online gaming years ago.

I used to play CounterStrike (shows how long ago that was). I got tired of the idiot and sometimes outright racist comments from the community.

 
 

Here, in our valley at the ass-end of Africa, it’s mostly Shiraz and Cabernet. Apparently, we Do Reds.

Actually I’ve had some pretty good red wines from South Africa Suezboo.

 
 

Suezboo, do you use the phrase “just now” to mean “in a few minutes, or perhaps later”?

I have a friend from Durban who uses that all the time, and it always makes me laugh.
.

 
 

Dubonnet over ice as an aperitif -my ex-favourite tipple. Do they still make that stuff?

They do indeed. Or try Lillet. With a twist of orange.

 
 

It’s pretty easy to find good rosés you just have to be in fecking Provence where every diner and corner bar has a good rosé. No zins involved either.

 
 

Yep. A lot of great rosés come from Provence. Spain and Italy as well, but Italian ones can be hard to find.

 
 

Now I, too, am experiencing the joys of iPhone autocorrect.

In Apple world, I am probably texting about setting up an autopsy for my wife, not an autopay.

 
 

The folks I stayed with the last time I was in Provence would do a couple bottles of chilled rosé every day at six after dressing for dinner. Seemed strange at first but I got used to it.

 
 

we Do Reds.

*moves as if to speak, thinks better of it, quietly backs away*

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

you just have to be in fecking Provence

Prezactly!

Genie’s Cafe. We’re splitting an order of the lemon blueberry pancakes (wif lemon curd) then he’s getting their traditional bennies (house cured Canadian bacon) while imma have same thing except with house made tasso. Potatoes O’Brien. Fresh squozed mimosas.

 
 

JP – Indeedy I do. On the other hand “now-now”, also a common SA colloquialism, means real soon, immediately. Both literal translations from the Afrikaans.
Any country with 11 official languages is going to have some crossovers, not so? (bingo)
El Manq : Good decision. I put that out there knowingly. (Wink)

 
 

JP – Indeedy I do. On the other hand “now-now”, also a common SA colloquialism, means real soon, immediately. Both literal translations from the Afrikaans.
Any country with 11 official languages is going to have some crossovers, not so? (bingo)

I find it amusing, ’cause if I used “just now” to describe when something happens, it will have already happened. Andre’s usage is just the opposite — not yet happened, but soon, perhaps.

“Hose pipe” is another one. Only my friend Andre from Durban, and an old country boy I know from Rutherford County, Tennessee, use that.
.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I may be a white boy from canada, but when someone suggests that my WoW character, a dark-skinned human woman, likes watermelon and grape drank, I can tell that they’re just DYING to call me “nigger”.

Wow, this asshole’s idea of an escapist fantasy is to be the same awful person he is in the real world? Talk about not getting the concept. Most players are thinking “I want to play as Legolas, or Merlin, or Red Sonja.” This guy’s thinking, “I want to play as David Duke.”

Talk about “taking a level in douchebag.”

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

On the other hand “now-now”, also a common SA colloquialism, means real soon, immediately. Both literal translations from the Afrikaans.

One of my co-workers is of Dutch ancestry, and grew up in a largely Dutch neighborhood on Long Island. She often says “yeah yeah” instead of “yes”. The funny thing is that she has got a bunch of us saying it now, Every time I catch someone saying “yeah yeah”, I laugh and say, “June’s got you saying that. She’s got me saying it too.”

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Had a misunderstanding with a local. I said I was “fixin to” do something or other which to me means maybe it’ll happen someday but if it does it’s likely to have occurred through happenstance. She insisted that round these parts when people say they’re fixin to do something THEY REALLY INTEND TO DO IT AND SOON. Weird.

 
 

Yeah PeeJ, I’d be curious where that Coninental Divide is between vague, hand waving, it might happen and steely eyed Western determination. It’s not east of the Sabine.

 
 

Mrs. R, a London gal, says “hose pipe”. Then again, she lived in Tennessee for several years so-?
I must inquire.

 
 

I also think of “fixing to” as definitely will be doing and soon. Also too sometimes “finna” is employed but usually not by me.

 
 

Fixin’ to die,
Fixin’ to die…

So, in which sense was Dylan (or whoever) using the phrase?
Not clear to me. (A phrase not used in these parts at all, afaik)

 
 

Here in Georgia “fixin’ to” means that one thoroughly wants to do a thing but that imponderable weights of inanition, laziness and fate might could intervene and make the desired outcome less likely.

 
 

“Fixin’ to” in KY, TN = getting ready to, in a very non-committal timeframe, but soonish.
.

 
 

@BBBB-

“June’s got you saying that. She’s got me saying it too.”

Today I called a cow Moo-Moo.
She’s got me talking that way too.
–Ogden Nash. Final rhymed couplet of a verse on (grand?)daughter’s baby talk.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Luckily I only eat at Applebee’s.

Nobody in history has ever gotten sick eating from the Applebee’s salad bar.

–Ogden Nash. Final rhymed couplet of a verse on (grand?)daughter’s baby talk.

Porlock, my dear fellow, Ogden Nash is one of my favorite poets.

The turtle lives ‘twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.

 
 

@JP, that’s sorta what I said.

 
 

Fittinah in Alabama means “About to.” I didn’t realize it could mean an indefinite time period, perhaps never.

 
 

Wow…. the OP actually made a lame joke about my family name? How very 4th Grade. But in all fairness, par for the course for libturds.

Hugs and kisses,
Tim Whiteman

 
 

Who’s “we,” Whiteman?
.

 
 

@JP, that’s sorta what I said.

Well, we said it nearly simultaneously in SadlyTime. 🙂 I’ll send the Coke, postage due.
.

 
 

I’ll be up there in a couple of weeks we can go out for hot chicken.

 
 

I’ll be up there in a couple of weeks we can go out for hot chicken.

The only part of the chicken I like is the nugget.
.

 
 

I use “fixin’ to” to mean I’m about to do it. “Gonna” means I’ll get to it……………probably.
Not sure if I got this in Chicago or New York.

When an Irish guy says “I’m after doin’ it” he means he’s just done it. Somehow in America this got interpreted as “I’m fixin’ to do it.” Maybe it’s like when I was in school, if you were “after” someone it meant you were fixin’ to beat them up.

Mrs. R isn’t sure either where she got “hose pipe” but she thought it came from “hose-pipe pants” which only made matters worse.

 
 

Mrs. R isn’t sure either where she got “hose pipe” but she thought it came from “hose-pipe pants” which only made matters worse.

Oh, my.

[/JustSayTakei]
.

 
 

The wingnuts going on about Trayvon and “lean” or “purple drank” are either confused, or relying on others’ confusion, about cough syrup. Everybody should know that cough syrup with codeine in it is available by prescription only. I’m sure there’s some on the black market (if Lil Wayne hasn’t bought it all up yet) but with regard to ordinary folks, it’s a safe bet that they don’t have access to it … And if anyone’s mixing the non-codeine syrup with other ingredients to make a fake “sizzurp” drink, who the fuck cares? They’re actually diluting the bit of alcohol in it, and getting an unpleasant “high” off dextromethorphan or something. If that was the point, you wouldn’t mix it, you’d just chug it. Which is not the scene wingnuts are trying to associate Trayvon with.

Disclaimer: none of this bears on the case, only on wingnuts’ foolishness. Apologies if I’m repeating myself, I don’t remember.

 
 

I also think of “fixing to” as definitely will be doing and soon

Fixing what? It ain’t broke.

 
 

Then there are the unsubstantiated claims that Trayvon inquired about getting codeine syrup. The thing is, a substantial subset of teenagers inquire about this drug or that, much as they inquire about sex. Some of them inquire regularly, without getting anywhere. I remember all this quite clearly. For ex., I tried pot at age fourteen but didn’t buy any until around 20-21. Crucially, I had no money and no connections in the interim. I made innumerable inquiries, and people sometimes smoked it with me, but I was almost always clean, typically for months on end, in spite of looking like a space cadet.

I’m going to assume that Trayvon was as straight, probably much straighter, than I was at his age. Which is, again, irrelevant to the case.

 
 

FUCK THAT SHIT! Pabst! BLUE! RIBBON!

Hipster!

David Lynch has SO MUCH to answer for.

 
 

Red Zin is your burgers, pizza and bbq wine. Food that you might otherwise have a beer with.

I usually end up…having a beer with that stuff.

But then, I’m a wine retard. Use the stuff only for cooking (which usually means a splash of red in my Ragu).

 
 

Whiteman is the world’s worst superhero.

Well, the worst superhero — and band name — I know of (which isn’t saying much on either count) is “Rapeman.”

 
 

I’m sure there are worse band names that I’ve encountered and forgotten. That one really hit a nerve, though. Nobody really cares if you’re “Revolting Cocks” or “Goblin Cock” or “Cannibal Corpse” etc.

 
 

Or “Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel.” Never heard ’em.

 
 

Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel was awesome.

Crushed with falling masonry!

 
 

The Sucking Chest Wounds were full of suck.

 
 

much as they inquire about sex. Some of them inquire regularly, without getting anywhere.

Oh, so you did know me in high school and college.

 
 

Oh, so you did know me in high school and college.

I think he’s talking about me now.

 
 

Certainly not talking about me — those were my “productive” years. I was young, skinny, played guitar in garage bands, and looked a bit like Justin Bieber, so I was swimming in it.
.

 
 

I was shy and a bit of a nerd. I couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison with handful of free pardons.

 
 

I was shy and a bit of a nerd.

So was I — never made a first move, and was mostly monogamous in my yout’, too.

 
 

WInes that are good from NZ are; Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Claret thingies Cab/Merlot from Hawkes Bay is good.
ha ha with Global warming our reds will get better. How about that liberals?!?!
This weeks “Don’t Drink it Smut!” features Lithuanian country beer. A Riddled After Dark production.

 
 

Here in Georgia “fixin’ to” means that one thoroughly wants to do a thing but that imponderable weights of inanition, laziness and fate might could intervene and make the desired outcome less likely.

Huh, that’s not how we used it, we always used it in the “I’ma get right to it” sense.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

My Mom was from Texas, and for her “fixin’ to do” something meant “The wheels are in motion”.

 
 

In general use, “fixin’ to” meant “I will probably get around to it by the end of the day.”
.

 
 

In my family “In a minute” means that you will do it before the universe ends. This led to trouble with my nephew who would time us and say “It’s a minute, now”

 
 

I’ve found savignon blanc from New Zealand to be both good and not expensive. It makes for a good cooking wine, IMHO.

 
 

WTF, Dennis? You’re making even less sense than usual.

 
 

we always used it in the “I’ma get right to it” sense.

Yeah sure, but did you ever do anything? No. I rest my case.

I just wish I could get the south Georgia no into that no for you Athens snobs.

 
 

WTF, Dennis? You’re making even less sense than usual.

I have always had him badgered, and all time gods.
.

 
 

I rest my case.

 
 

I’ve quit responding to him, JP, you can take me off the badger list as nothing I post here will ever refer to any troll in the future.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

All that pee, gone like a troll’s comments.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

All that pee, gone like a troll’s comments.

The extra “E” is for extra pee.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

My only request is that if being moderated like this triggers another “LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL….LLLLL” meltdown, that that be preserved for posterity.

 
 

I think everyone should watch Fruitvale Station.

If there’s ever a film that shows just how random our system of institutionalized violence is, this is it.

 
 

I second the TVRBoKs’ request, along with the log of the attempts to comment that took place 24 hours before the “LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL……LLLLLL” .

 
 

Speaking of kittens, does anyone have suggestions for toys that will entertain a very smart, very athletic cat?

String of elastic bands hung in the middle of an open room with a catnip mouse at the end, mouse being just high enough that kitty has to make an effort to get it.

Remove all breakables.

 
 

Bent Paddle Golden IPA from Duluth fucking Minnesota tonight. Pretty good stuff but not as good as Bell’s Two Hearted.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

I’m having trouble restraining myself from ordering that thing where the mouse runs back and forth under a christmas-tree-skirt-like fabric circle. Our cats would go nucking futs!

 
 

Oh and Cerb – Great fucking post.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I would never deLLLLLLLLLLLLLLete a meLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLtdown.

Besides, anyone with moderation authorization can untrash a comment. I thought he was close on August first when he lied about not spending any time posting here.

 
 

Awreet, which one of you punks is feelin’ lucky enough to be the first to mess w/ my comments?

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Awreet, which one of you punks is feelin’ lucky enough to be the first to mess w/ my comments?

And rob the world of your scintillating wit?

 
 

I am the very model of
a modern moderator.
Cleaning up the droppings
of a mediocre prater.
Discoursing philosphically
on matters to the right of me.
But only ever blocking
Mcgravitas’ goatse.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

But only ever blocking
Mcgravitas’ goatse.

Nah, I’d never do that. Hell, I’ve even seen his “wireframe goatse” animation live on his laptop while drinking a beer with him in a Moroccan restaurant over a foot-fetish party parlor.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Wow, reading my last comment, I basically said: “Dennis, more offensive than goatse”.

Reading this comment, I’d have to admit, he is more offensive than goatse.

 
 

I’ve even seen his “wireframe goatse” animation live on his laptop while drinking a beer with him in a Moroccan restaurant over a foot-fetish party parlor.

Sigh. I lead a boring life.

 
 

Wait, can I come in again?
.

 
 

Foot and Pastry fetish restaurant: “Choux’s it or Looze it”
Kickstarter here I come!

 
 

I DID keep the goatse for the foot-fetish place instead of the baby beer parlour, so you gotta give me that.

 
 

How about we call a moratorium on the “Zimmerman lynched Martin” trope? [Editor: No, Sorry bub. You are welcome to construct your own blog on the subject, however!]

 
 

deadrat, it’s the response of the wingnuts that makes it like a lynching, especially the ones who claim that Martin was up to something no good like making some sort of drug mixture when all he was doing was trying to go home to his fathers’ house.

Zimmerman now has the mark of Cain associated with him for the rest of his life, and I hope it’s a long and miserable one.

 
 

Whatever you think of Zimmerman, his actions taken in the worst light are nothing like a lynching.

It was a vigilante killing of an innocent black youth in order to give a message to the broader black community- as Zimmerman said, “they always get away with it”.

The killing was basically sanctioned by law enforcement figures, who didn’t properly investigate the crime, and by the larger community, who decided not to bring lesser charges to the perpetrator.

Zimmerman now has folk-hero status among the gun nuts and racists of this country- the police who stopped him for speeding in Texas apparently took “fan” pictures of the dude, and Ohio gun nuts raised money so he could buy more guns.

Meanwhile, the shooting of black men in Florida continues- the last notable example being a guy who was getting cigarettes out of his mother’s car in his own driveway. The Martin shooting took place in this context of racial animus.

I don’t know why you want to sugar-coat the killing of Martin by not calling it a lynching, but I, like many others, don’t buy it.

 
 

Innnnnnnterrressting.

Well, radical, fundamentalist Islam is a right-wing ideology. Scratch the surface and there’s no difference between a Moqtada al-Sadr and a Bryan Fischer. BTW, Moqtada al-Sarah is perhaps the funniest thing in the history of the internet. For all the righties claim that liberals and Democrats are in cahoots with “Islamofascists”, they are the ones who have a similar ideology.

The only thing that keeps the Tea Partiers from going full-on Tealiban is the First Amendment, and they are continually chipping away at the wall of separation between church and state. FSM help us all if they ever succeed.

 
 

Merci for the kitten amusement suggestions, seconding Deadrat.

 
 

,,,the funniest thing in the history of the internet.

Ah geez, now I feel guilty about not ‘shopping stuff anymoars. OTOH, very excited about site update. I hoist my dextromethorphan-laced soft drink in anticipation.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Ah geez, now I feel guilty about not ‘shopping stuff anymoars.

Hey, you could retire after that, as TV Tropes would put it, “Crowning Moment of Awesome”, and still be a ‘shopping god.

 
 

Whatever you think of Zimmerman, his actions taken in the worst light are nothing like a lynching.

Sorry, bub, brother or sister, but you have it exactly wrong. Nice tack though.

 
 

No, the horror of the kind of lynching you’re discussing is it is performed in public. It says “We can grab you, kill you in broad daylight in front of not just witnesses, but an approving crowd, and there isn’t a damned thing anyone will do to help you.” It says “Your life is so without value you can be killed to provide impromptu public entertainment.” It says, “You are beneath the law.” And it says to anyone who might try to intervene “There’s always more rope, so shut up.”

Parallels between Martin’s killing and the above? Zero. And no one can make it more than zero unless they are willfully ignorant of the history of lynching in the U.S.

Isn’t the chicken-shit killing of a kid because he was black bad enough for you people?

 
 

It will all end in tears, I know it…

honestly, i don’t think bbbb is going to cry…

hubbkf and i were rather chagrined yestiddy morning when we realized whe had consumed an entire bottle of evan williams…on the upside, i was introduced to omar and the howlers…

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I was out of town and out of commission posting most of Aug 1; that was no lie.

You’re the one lying here, B^4. I was at an O’s game with a customer and didn’t post past 6:30 est on the 31st. And didn’t post thru that night and most of the next day on the 1st. I saw someone in the mod squad blamed me for posting Cerb’s LinkedIn pages, and that wasn’t me, either.

Now, now, the IP address, the several e-mails that you used to log in (the current one you’re using is an attempt to nymsteal someone who doesn’t even post here), all point to you. Basically, you’re saying, “Who are you going to believe, me, or the evidence before your eyes?”

You’re done, Den, give it up.

 
 

Isn’t the chicken-shit killing of a kid because he was black bad enough for you people?

It helps if you start the argument at some other point on the continuum of lynching. It is not completely like lynching, for reasons you outline. It is not nothing like lynching, for reasons BBBB outlines. There are more positions than binary ones.

 
 

B^4,

I don’t want to sugar-coat Martin’s killing. I want to continue to think straight even when I’m angry. I recommend this attitude to you.

Zimmerman is now a folk-hero to gun nuts and racists? The ones who claim that it’s actually Zimmerman who was “lynched”? That’s on them, and I don’t want to think like them, although scare quotes should probably surround that last infinitive.

The killing was not “basically sanctioned by law enforcement figures.” The lead investigator for the Sanford PD recommended indicting Zimmerman, and the state attorney refused, saying he knew an unwinnable case when he saw it. And you know what? He was right to begin with. In Florida, when someone shoots and kills the only rebuttal witness, the state can’t meet its burden to convict the killer. That’s not a bug in Florida law, that’s a feature brought to you by the NRA, ALEC, and brain-dead legislators.

It’s not true that the “larger community” decided not to bring lesser charges against Zimmerman. The larger community, speaking through its teahadist governor, appointed Florida’s most-crazed prosecutor to bring greater charges, namely 2nd-degree murder, which allowed the jury to consider as well the lesser charge of manslaughter.

You think the candidate for Most Incompetent Vigilante Ever, the guy who got himself beaten up by his victim, was sending a message? Fine, but don’t tell me it was a lynching, because I know what a lynching is, thanks to the Tuskegee Institute, which carefully documented the practice. And thanks to those who celebrated it. Go here: http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

No, the horror of the kind of lynching you’re discussing is it is performed in public. It says “We can grab you, kill you in broad daylight in front of not just witnesses, but an approving crowd, and there isn’t a damned thing anyone will do to help you.” It says “Your life is so without value you can be killed to provide impromptu public entertainment.” It says, “You are beneath the law.” And it says to anyone who might try to intervene “There’s always more rope, so shut up.”

The act of shooting itself wasn’t a lynching per we. What we call a lynching is the Tealiban reaction to the shooting.
The ONLY difference is that the public approval came afterward.

 
 

Dennissey said,

August 5, 2013 at 16:59

I know it’s over, still I cling, I don’t know where else I can troll.

My God, you’ve discovered something better than a Kittening. A Morrisseyinngng.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I don’t want to sugar-coat Martin’s killing. I want to continue to think straight even when I’m angry. I recommend this attitude to you.

Condescend much? I’m with SMcG on this one, there’s a continuum, and the killing of Martin falls within it. He was targeted by a guy who wanted to “send a message” to “thugs” and the law enforcement officers took his word and neglected to investigate the killing. If it hadn’t been for a sustained public outcry, there wouldn’t have been a trial.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

My God, you’ve discovered something better than a Kittening. A Morrisseyinngng.

It was too easy, once “Dennissey” popped into my mind.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Please go back and read Provider’s original comments. He was quite clear in saying that the lynching aspect is in the after the fact reaction of so much of the populace. Saying “Zimmerman’s lynching of Trayvon” is sloppy and incorrect so whoever said that upthread should revise and extend their remarks. Again, we aren’t calling Zimmerman’s shooting a “lynching.” We are talking about what happened next. Which, as P_UNE showed clearly, was a virtual/digital/metaphorical lynching.

 
 

The DG of Time,

Wingnuts are always doing something dumb, like making shit up about Martin. That’s why they’re wingnuts, and that’s why it’s never a good idea to adopt their way of thinking. In a lynching, the wingnuts show up as the victim is dragged to the rope so they can defy the law, participate in the killing, and celebrate the depravity. That’s what makes it a lynching. Posting anonymous racist comments on Red State and The Free Republic, not so much.

 
 

The only part of the chicken I like is the nugget

our high school is quite fond of serving chicken nuggets along with mashed potatoes and gravy…the music teacher would always look bemused and ask, ‘how do you make gravy from a nugget?’

 
 

The act of shooting itself wasn’t a lynching per we. What we call a lynching is the Tealiban reaction to the shooting.
The ONLY difference is that the public approval came afterward.

So you’re defining a lynching as the killing of a minority that garners approval of some portion of people after the fact?

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Also, “synecdoche.”

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

No, we (P_UNE) aren’t “defining” the word at all. We are extending the meaning in a contemporary context.

 
 

PM,

Oh, I see. It was a virtual/digital/metaphorical lynching. Is that anything like a high-tech lynching? Given what actual lynchings were like, if you don’ t see some grotesqueness in the term v/d/m lynching, I suggest you follow the link I provided B^4.

Short of that, consider that you and the wingnuts share the same chant. You’re just on opposite sides of the field. That should give you some pause.

 
 

On Lynchings

Lynchings were covered in local newspapers with headlines spelling out the horrific details. Photos of victims, with exultant white observers posed next to them, were taken for distribution in newspapers or on postcards. Body parts, including genitalia, were sometimes distributed to spectators or put on public display. Most infractions were for petty crimes, like theft, but the biggest one of all was looking at or associating with white women. Many victims were black businessmen or black men who refused to back down from a fight. Headlines such as the following were not uncommon:

“Five White Men Take Negro Into Woods; Kill Him: Had Been Charged with Associating with White Women” went over The Associated Press wires about a lynching in Shreveport, Louisiana.

“Negro Is Slain By Texas Posse: Victim’s Heart Removed After His Capture By Armed Men” was published in The New York World Telegram on December 8, 1933.

“Negro and White Scuffle; Negro Is Jailed, Lynched” was published in the Atlanta Constitution on July 6, 1933.

Newspapers even printed that prominent white citizens in local towns attended lynchings, and often published victory pictures — smiling crowds, many with children in tow — standing next to the corpse.

James Byrd’s murder has also been described as a lynching, which even though it wasn’t public did involve three people (at least).

 
 

No, we (P_UNE) aren’t “defining” the word at all. We are extending the meaning in a contemporary context.

So you’re redefining the word.

Does this mean you agree with those who are “extending the meaning in the contemporary context” by saying that Zimmerman was a near victim of a lynching?

Clarence Thomas once came in for a bit of scorn by claiming to be the victim of a high-tech lynching, was he right after all?

 
 

Productivity is much higher today thanks to technology. What used to take 5 guys and a rope can now be accomplished by one person with a handgun. Progress!

 
 

PM,

Spare me the literary pretensions. It’s not that I don’t understand your metaphor. I’m saying it’s not apt.

 
 

Let’s also remember that on the night of the murder, there was no arrest. Despite having 911 tapes detailing the stalking which preceded the killing, the police told Zimmerman “you are free to go”.

 
 

B^4,

Condescend much?

Well, yeah. Too heavy-handed? My bad. I’ll try to be more subtle.

So you’re gonna defend one inapt metaphor with another. There’s now a lynching continuum, kinda like the spectrum of visible light. Real lynchings would be on the red end, wouldn’t you say? And the killing of Martin somewhere near the indigo, but hey! Martin’s killing falls on the continuum.

You want to believe that Zimmerman “targeted” Martin for killing while he was on the phone to the cops? Fine. You think this sad sack had a “message” to send? Fine, again.

But, you see, in a real lynching, the sustained public outcry is for the victim’s murder, not for the trial of the killers. Where does that go on the continuum?

I’m not sure what more you wanted the cops to investigate. They had the killer, and they reported their findings to the state attorney, who didn’t think he could get a conviction. And guess what? He was right. How exactly did you want the cops to further investigate the word of the guy who killed the only rebuttal witness to his claim of self-defense?

 
 

Let’s also remember that on the night of the murder, Zimmerman claims he was acting due to a string of break-ins and robberies in the gated community. So he picked a “suspicious looking” (i.e. a black guy in a hoodie) guy to blame it on, and then killed him.

Here’s the commonality – race based vigilante “justice” ending in murder.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

Sometimes I wish there had been a ‘Dirty Harry’ style movie where the ‘renegade cop who doesn’t play by the rules’ fucks up an important case and his boring ‘by the book’ co-workers have to clean up the mess and solve the case. In other words, why the fuck do so many authoritarian people romanticize vigilantism and do you suppose if we asked them nicely that they would stop?

 
 

D-K Wangchuck,

Let’s try not to remember things that didn’t happen, OK? On the night of the killing, (which while we’re remembering things, a jury decided wasn’t a murder), Zimmerman was taken into custody and questioned. You can tell it was custodial because the cops read Zimmerman his Miranda warning. Zimmerman wasn’t arraigned, but that’s because the state attorney figured it was a case he couldn’t win.

Let’s also add “stalking” to the list of things you’ve misremembered. If you mean that in the legal sense, then sadly, no, Zimmerman wasn’t stalking Martin. Florida law requires a pattern of repeated behavior for stalking. If you mean that in the sense of a predator shadowing his prey for the kill, then Zimmerman turns out to be the first predator beaten up by his prey. In any case, stalking in this sense requires premeditation, which means 1st degree murder, which even Corey didn’t endorse.

 
 

But, you see, in a real lynching, the sustained public outcry is for the victim’s murder, not for the trial of the killers. Where does that go on the continuum?

You’re going binary again. There was also a sustained public outcry on behalf of the rightness of Zimmerman’s actions. It’s not “nothing like” a lynching if we can buy the idea that it sends that message: black people are subject to extrajudicial killing.

 
 

deadrat —

This isn’t a metaphor that distorts the big picture, but one that illuminates it, albeit imperfectly. You’re welcome to use the term “murder,” but it’s reductive if not accompanied by the contextual stuff we’re insisting on. Once that stuff is in play, as it should be, the term “high-tech lynching” is damn good shorthand. And we are willing to discuss the shortcomings of this approach.

I don’t see any comparison to the language games and errors that define the U.S. right, re: this topic or any other. Literary pretensions may annoy, but I’d gladly suffer a shitload of annoyance if conservative discourse got a little less sloppy and deceptive.

“The Royal Baby is a Rejection of the Family Chaos Liberalism Feeds On,” etc.

 
 

Let’s try not to remember things that didn’t happen, OK?

Sure. Zimmerman was not arrested the night of the murder. He was held for a few hours.

Zimmerman may not have been “stalking” Martin by the definition used for disgruntled ex-boyfriends – but he definitely was in the plain english definition of the word. He spent several minutes talking to 911 about how he was doing exactly that – following the “suspicious” character. And your point about him getting beat up? I am pretty sure that that aspect of it wasn’t part of Zimmerman’s plans. If a cobra finds out that the rat he was stalking is actually a mongoose – it’s still stalking.

On that point – notice how when Zimmerman was pulled over for speeding he admitted that his gun was in the glove compartment. Which makes sense (if you concede that travelling around with a loaded pistol can ever make sense). And yet when he got out of his stalker-mobile to figure out what street he was on (just like neighbourhood watch captains to not know their neighbourhood – amirite?), the gun came with him.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

If you mean that in the sense of a predator shadowing his prey for the kill, then Zimmerman turns out to be the first predator beaten up by his prey.

Please remember that this never actually happened. Zimmerman’s “injuries” were cooked up when he (and the Sanford PD) needed a better story. The night of the murder, he was completely unmarked.

He was just exactly a predator shadowing his prey for the kill—that’s stalking in the ordinary meaning of the word, not the recent cooked-up one.

Martin’s killing was clearly intended to convey to the black population that just for the crime of being abroad in public you can be hunted down, stalked, and killed in cold blood; that you are beneath the law—even if you are murdered in cold blood, the law won’t even bring your murderer to justice; and that it will become the public perception that you, the victim, were the actual criminal, that your murderer was only righting the wrong that your inappropriate presence represented.

This may not be the 1893 meaning of “lynching”, but I don’t think it’s a tortured metaphor—certainly nothing like Clarence Thomas’.

 
 

The use of “high-tech lynching” as a cautionary rhetorical example to people who feel that Martin’s death has elements of lynching is inapt because Clarence Thomas neither died nor failed to achieve his aims.

 
 

Zimmerman turns out to be the first predator beaten up by his prey

You obviously haven’t watched any nature shows. More than one lion has had its face kicked in by a large hoofed animal it was trying to catch.

 
 

Also re: sustained public outcry,,,not for the trial of the killers.

Dude. Did you not just link that article about Emmett Till?

 
 

Also too, while I agree that the sample size is small enough to create some weird artifacts in the results (and Roman’s reporting of three significant figures is definitely an exaggeration of accuracy) there’s definitely something there about the acceptability of killing black people.

 
 

Dude. Did you not just link that article about Emmett Till?

My bad – got the links mixed up.

 
 

deadrat said,
August 5, 2013 at 18:15

PM,

Oh, I see.

it is clear that you do not.

lynching, I suggest you follow the link I provided B^4.

Condescension level: imperial. We know fucking well exactly what it was like. Twatwaffle.

 
 

Deadrat, just as Emmett Tills’ lynching was for the high crime of not respecting white women, the wingnut reaction to the verdict is to smear the victim in order to justify the response they had to Zimmerman, who is on the record as saying he wouldn’t change anything that happened(i. e., a dead Mr. Martin), and attributing it to “Gods’ Will. That’s what makes it a sort of posthumous lynching, the reaction to accuse Martin of all sorts of misbehavior and crimes based on the scantiest of evidence, to justify Zimmermans’ shooting of him.

Next thing I know, you’ll say that this can’t be compared to a lynching because a rope wasn’t used to strangle Martin to death.

 
 

Okay, we’re redefining it. We all know what lynchings WERE. We’re all well read, worldly people here. Thing is, those kinds of lynchings have been extremely rare in the last 50 or so years. So when the original comment _likened_ the aftermath of Zimmerman’s execution of Trayvon OF FUCKING COURSE we aren’t calling LITERALLY a lynching of the type that was once all too common.

You sound like the righties whining about “redefining marriage.” Exactly like that, actually. I get that it is very important to you – as it should be to us all – but extending the meaning to incorporate new realities does not demean, harm, trivialize, obscure … In any way that matters.

As for the Clarence Thomas thing, puhleeeezzz. You’re making the comparison is as laughably ridiculous as his saying it in the first place.

 
 

Thing is, those kinds of lynchings have been extremely rare in the last 50 or so years.

In other words, because there haven’t been enough of the really horrific lynchings, the word can get tweaked to mean something else. I mean, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. By that logic since we haven’t had a Holocaust in a while, so the righties habit of referring to abortion as a Holocaust is perfectly OK, yes?

You sound like the righties whining about “redefining marriage.”

Nice try, but there have been instances of righties whining that Zimmerman was almost lynched. I ask again, how is this different?

If we agree you can prod a definition around to suit “modern circumstances,” or to keep the word from getting stale or whatever the rather frantic argument one wishes to employ, how do we say this re-purposing is all right, but that one isn’t?

If you want to make it a matter of whether someone from a powerless group is killed by someone is power, are you willing to say a lynching occurs every time a man kills a woman? Or a straight person kills a gay person? A rich man kills a poor man?

If you want to say it takes a death + public approval, let’s assume that tomorrow Mr. Zimmerman’s earthly remains are found at the bottom of a very long flight of stairs and and there’s a large muddy footprint on his backside. I guarantee that a not small number of dumbfucks will do the happy dance. Will that make his death a lynching?

 
 

Will that make his death a lynching?

Uh, I think we’re agreed that the race-based vigilante killing of someone is a requirement for “lynching”. So if they find that your hypothetical guy who kicked Zimmerman down the stairs was a crazy white supremacist partially motivated by Zimmerman’s mixed race heritage – yes that’s a lynching. Even if dude acted alone.

 
 

In other words, because there haven’t been enough of the really horrific lynchings, the word can get tweaked to mean something else.

This is getting tiresome.

of righties whining that Zimmerman was almost lynched. I ask again, how is this different?

Righties whining that he was almost lynched is bizarre hyperbole. Our discussing the real similarities of what actually happened to the lynchings of your in a political/social context is something else entirely. Similarly with Clarence Thomas. He applied the word to a situation that had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with lynchings. To claim that we are acting similarly when we are applying the word, with a discussion of WHY, to a situation that has MANY THINGS IN COMMON with actual lynchings is in any wasy similar is simply inane.

Try this: I can call people fags. You better not. You can call people nigger. I can’t do that. Capisce?

 
 

The question about power disparity is a good one though. My interpretation of lynching requires that the victim belong to a marginalized group. Race-based is definitely the most related to the original meaning of the term, but would I accept other prejudiced and bigoted motivations to categorize something as a lynching? Probably.

IMO, sexual orientation and non-“traditional” sexual identity are yes’es. The whole “where the white women at” nature of historical lynchings seethe with sexual undertones. Bigoted undertones based on puritanical ignorance and insecurity and need to control.

Gender? If a dude kills some woman who he has blamed for some made-up crime, and it’s her as the victim specifically because she’s a woman – should that be considered a lynching (if he got away with it and there was vomit-inducing celebratory happenings afterwards)? Probably. It typically isn’t because it’s also probably a rape-murder and rape-murder describes it well enough.

 
 

This is getting tiresome.

Oh, I’m way ahead of you on this one.

Try this: I can call people fags. You better not. You can call people nigger. I can’t do that. Capisce?

What the actual fuck? If your point is to prove you’re one of those disgusting dickheads who lives for a chance to use the N-word, you have my hearty congrats.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

Fine. Lets not split any more hairs. From now on, we don’t use the word lynching unless a gang of white people drag a black man to the edge of town and string him up, and pose for pictures with the corpse.

Every other time where a person from a privileged group kills a member of a less powerful group can be called “George Zimmermanning”. You can even give it degrees. 1st class, the victim dies and killer walks. 2nd class the victim dies and the victim is convicted, 3rd class the victim survives… etc.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

You continue to amaze me with how much you just don’t get it. Its like you’re not actually reading what I write, nor giving the least bit of thought to what I might mean, seemingly in favor of being dogmatically offended.

What the actual fuck? If your point is.

Good gawd woman are you fucking dense? The point, which should be apparent to anyone with the brains god gave to crustaceans, is that victims co-op words used to oppress them. When the oppressors use those words is just more poppression.

 
 

“George Zimmermanning”.

This is a very constructive suggestion that would cause right wing testicles to retract up behind their livers.

A++ and a gold star.

 
 

that would cause right wing testicles to retract up behind their livers.

do not want this image settling in my branes…

 
 

I’m not dense, you’re just wrong.

And for the record, I fucking loathe that idea that the n-word has can or should be co-opted by black people. It is a disgusting word with a disgusting history. Perhaps you hear it more than I do and so it no longer means much to you, but it still makes me feel a bit ill.

The only person I know personally who used it was my dear deranged grandma, who was a walking encyclopedia of derogatory terms for everyone.

 
 

Matthew Shepard got lynched in a manner of speaking, too. There were, if I’m not mistaken, plenty of people who sympathized with the young murderers and actually tried to legitimize this “gay panic” bullshit they made up.

This slightly off topic interjection was brought to you by the number 69. Eat hearty, me lads.

 
 

Perhaps you hear it more than I do and so it no longer means much to you, but it still makes me feel a bit ill.

it makes my stomach jump and me actually cringe when i hear it…sadly, i have a brother who uses it fairly frequently and is starting to get annoyed with me when i chastise him…but he’s usually always drunk and i am beginning to suspect showing signs of mental illness…in fact, both of my remaining brothers are showing it…

i feel the same way over the word ‘retard’ as well…(and ahem, bitter scribe)…i’m just realizing that i find it weird that ethnic slurs and those towards the special needs bunch, really, really upset me, but use of the ‘c’ word really doesn’t…except when it’s used in a way to de-humanize women…but calling a perfectly awful woman a ‘c’ doesn’t bother me…

 
 

HAHA–right wingers don’t have testicles. They’re all asexual, according to the doctrine they spread around.

 
 

This slightly off topic interjection was brought to you by the number 69. Eat hearty, me lads.

this whole thread has been making me think of the words we use and how they are applied…black people are lynched; native americans were massacred, jews exterminated…

 
 

Major Kong,

I love those nature shows! Remember that one where the zebra circled around behind the lion that was stalking it, and then jumped on the lion, and pummeled it MMA style?

Me neither.

 
 

I’m not dense, you’re just wrong.

I knew that. If only I could just realize that your viewpoint is the only one that could possibly be right, that nothing anyone else can say matters for shit.

 
 

HAHA–right wingers don’t have testicles. They’re all asexual, according to the doctrine they spread around.

wait up…i thought we were supposed to revere manly conservative testicles because the usually produce more manly and testicled conservative men?

 
 

HAHA–right wingers don’t have testicles.

Well, that explains how they squeeze into the two wetsuits. Otherwise it would probably pinch.

 
 

Me neither.

That’s because you are an idiot. A solitary male lion has roughly a one in six success rate on hunts. Also, you may recall it was Zimmerman with the MMA fixation.

 
 

tsam – I wuz thinkin about bringing up gay-bashing but in a slightly different context. That context being the “homosexual panic” defense. Basic idea is the gay-basher says “he was coming on to me!” which, in the eyes of many people, including more than a few jurors, made the killing justified. It was most frequently applied when the victims were conveniently unable to present their version of events. So I suppose that if the perps got off then it wasn’t gay bashing.

Just btw, it came up fairly recently in the case of that kid in a California(?) school who “deserved” what he got because he was not conforming.

 
 

My interpretation of lynching requires that the victim belong to a marginalized group

I think this sums up the definition well.

If a pretty white woman gets murdered, everyone goes to jail and nobody can figure out just how in the fuck someone could be so fucking cruel and disgusting, and accept no phony, bullshit excuses for it.

If a black kid gets killed, it’s cuz of the hoodie, the drink, because all young black men are criminals, because everyone has a story about how they were victimized by a pack of rabid black kids–therefore total racism is justified.

It becomes a lynching (perhaps by a more modern definition) when the excuse mill starts churning immediately after the crime, and a sickening number of people buy it and eat it.

 
 

tsam – I wuz thinkin about bringing up gay-bashing but in a slightly different context.

I think it applies here.

There is also a predisposition for some to commit the crimes, believing that they have better than even odds of getting acquitted…This, I suppose, goes back to the marginalized group theory, which gay people certainly still are.

 
 

Pupenius,

Twatwaffle

Wonderful. Just wonderful. That’s your argument? If you think my condescension level was imperial before. Try to guess where it is now.

You want to think like a wingnut, be my guest. How could I stop you?

Did you follow the link? Or did it just feel good enough to call me a name?

Redefining words is for them. We’re supposed to be better than that.

The Golden Age of Lynching in the American south is hard enough to look upon and come to any understanding. It doesn’t help to grab it for a handy metaphor.

 
 

this whole thread has been making me think of the words we use and how they are applied…black people are lynched; native americans were massacred, jews exterminated

Why you gotta turn my comment about fuck sticks and poontang into a discussion on killing everybody?

I think a lynching would be more applicable to single or small group of people. Could easily apply to natives, as it often did from the time of the expansions West. Could apply to Jews as well.

One or a few: Lynching
A large group: Massacre
A swipe at an entire ethnic/religious group: Genocide or extermination.

Yes?

 
 

Shepard’s death is certainly an example of a lynching motivated by hate.

The Gay Panic defense was brought to us by some really desperate defense attorneys and according to the wikerpedes, it doesn’t work. I think it amounts to announcing you’re fricking guilty.

And … it looks like the ABA is thinking of barring attorneys from using it. I don’t know if this will have the same impact as barring the introduction of a victim’s sexual history during a sexual assault trial, but it will be cool if someone calls official bullshit on this one.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/12/american-bar-association-may-ban-gay-panic-defense/

 
 

Yes?

yes…

now back to previous fucksticks and poontang 🙂

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

It worked pretty well in quite a few cases, going back several decades.

 
 

i thought we were supposed to revere manly conservative testicles

I now have this horrible mental image of masses of women kowtowing before 50′ high hairy red white and blue balls GOP stamped on one and a cross on the other. But that isn’t the worst bit.

The worst bit is the realization that this is how Conservofucks think the world should be.

Please never mention this again.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

s that your argument.

Can you say “projection?” Only a twatwaffle would conflate insult and argument.

 
 

St Kathy,

Oh, I see. It’s not a real lynching. It’s an oxymoronic posthumous lynching, but not even that, just “sort of” that.

Let’s add that to the virtual/digital/metaphorical definition, shall we?

We can condemn the attempts to smear Martin for imagined crimes and other misdeeds because we can stand by the evidence that the smears are immaterial and lies. That’s what sets us apart from the defamers. Or it should. It shouldn’t be inapt metaphors that distort the meaning of one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly book of American racial history.

And about that “next thing” you know, sweetie? There has to be a first thing for that to happen.

 
 

*cracks open door, peers around*

Ruh roh.

*sneaks away*

 
 

Jesus fuck. I am anti-semantic and you are all ruining my day.

 
 

wait up…i thought we were supposed to revere manly conservative testicles because the usually produce more manly and testicled conservative men?

No, see, the lack of balls makes them talk about how big and hairy they are and this compulsion to hang a pair on their trucks which are totally not compensating for anything. Nope. Not at all.

I’m sure they have testicles. They’re just too insecure in their manhood and self image to accept the fact that sometimes men like men or men and women, or women like women. It’s a fact of life, and acting like you’re all grossed out by it so that some other dumbfuck (OMG) might have some question about your sexuality just indicates a deep seated fear that is very very unhealthy.

Same goes for the guys who make fun of me for drinking a Blue Moon or a Hefe with an orange in it. I always ask them why they’re so worried about what I’m drinking, and tell them they’re welcome to try to take it away from me–but it’s bullshit. If a man wants a wine cooler or a Zima and he likes it, the rest of us should just STFU about it.

 
 

I now have this horrible mental image of masses of women kowtowing before 50? high hairy red white and blue balls GOP stamped on one and a cross on the other

oooh…that’s MUCH nicer than what i was imagining

 
 

Here is a long and lawyerly treatise on GPD (PDF, also lawyerly.)

I’d forgotten about the Gaither case. Gaah. The human race needs a giant recall.

 
 

It worked pretty well in quite a few cases, going back several decades.

Including springing a bunch of cops who used to go into NY gay bars and beat all the shit out of everyone. Fucking fascists.

 
 

bbfk, I can’t begin to imagine the horrors behind that link, but I am grabbing a bucket of brain bleach, just in case I start.

 
 

Jesus fuck. I am anti-semantic and you are all ruining my day.

EXTERMINATE THE DEFINITIONS!!

 
 

We can condemn the attempts to smear Martin for imagined crimes and other misdeeds because we can stand by the evidence that the smears are immaterial and lies. That’s what sets us apart from the defamers. Or it should. It shouldn’t be inapt metaphors that distort the meaning of one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly book of American racial history.

no, we can condemn the smears because the wingnuts are using them to JUSTIFY martin’s murder…and it’s clearly NOT the ugliest chapter in the ugly book of american racial history because it’s still going on…

 
 

It shouldn’t be inapt metaphors that distort the meaning of one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly book of American racial history.

One of the ugliest chapters of American racial history involved public approval of extrajudicial killing of blacks. I don’t really see how bringing up the spectre of that is inapt, and I’m not sure why you’re so concerned. What’s the practical result if you lose this argument?

 
 

bbfk, I can’t begin to imagine the horrors behind that link, but I am grabbing a bucket of brain bleach, just in case I start.

oh, c’mon…don’t be chicken…it’s just a little adam sandler…

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Same goes for the guys who make fun of me for drinking a Blue Moon or a Hefe with an orange in it. I always ask them why they’re so worried about what I’m drinking, and tell them they’re welcome to try to take it away from me–but it’s bullshit. If a man wants a wine cooler or a Zima and he likes it, the rest of us should just STFU about it.

My brother-in-law-in-law (only not really) is from Alabama, and one time when I was drinking Wild Turkey, he said in Alabama that was considered a “ladies’ drink”. I went: “WTF! A 101-proof ladies’ drink?” You ever hear anything like this?

 
 

Pupienus,

Okay, we’re redefining it.

Er, no, It’s not OK. And if you were all so goddam well read and wordily, you’d all have figured out that in this case “extending the meaning to incorporate new realities” is another way to say “trivialize” or at least “mischaracterize.”

And because you’re so well-read, I can make it a little clearer: that’s just doubleplusungood.

You weren’t so happy when old Clarence tried “extending the meaning to incorporate new realities,” but you’re on solid ground. Because something.

And you can stop reading my mind any time now about marriage equality. Marriage is defined by statute, and when we change the statute, all that happens is that the statute applies to more people than it did before. Lynching isn’t defined by statute but by a historical reality I’d rather not see obscured by your need for poetic license.

 
 

it’s just a little adam sandler…

GAH.

 
 

Sandler?!

Noooo garble, blarble [other brain bleach soaking noises]!

 
 

You weren’t so happy when old Clarence tried “extending the meaning to incorporate new realities,” but you’re on solid ground. Because something.

There is a dead black male at the end of the story with an exculpated killer whereas Clarence Thomas succeeded in becoming one of the most powerful men in America.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

You weren’t so happy when old Clarence tried “extending the meaning to incorporate new realities,” but you’re on solid ground. Because something.

The one and only use of the word “lynch” that you’re willing to allow was already “extending the meaning to incorporate new realities”. When does that become no longer permissible?

The OED on “Lynch Law”:

The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence.‘The origin of the expression has not been determined. It is often asserted to have arisen from the proceedings of Charles Lynch, a justice of the peace in Virginia, who in 1782 was indemnified by an act of the Virginia Assembly for having illegally fined and imprisoned certain Tories in 1780. But Mr. Albert Matthews informs us that no evidence has been adduced to show that Charles Lynch was ever concerned in acts such as those which from 1817 onward were designated as “Lynch’s law”. It is possible that the perpetrators of these acts may have claimed that in the infliction of punishments not sanctioned by the laws of the country they were following the example of Lynch, which had been justified by the act of indemnity; or there may have been some other man of this name who was a ring-leader in such proceedings. Some have conjectured that the term is derived from the name of Lynche’s Creek, in South Carolina, which is known to have been in 1768 a meeting-place of the “Regulators”, a band of men whose professed object was to supply the want of regular administration of criminal justice in the Carolinas, and who committed many acts of violence on those suspected of “Toryism”.’ (N.E.D.)

The particulars supplied by Ellicott, together with other evidence, clearly establish the fact that the originator of Lynch law was Captain William Lynch (1742–1820) of Pittsylvania in Virginia. According to Ellicott, ‘this self-created judicial tribunal was first organized in the state of Virginia about the year 1776’; an article in the Southern Lit. Messenger (1836) 2 389 gives the date definitely as 1780.

 
 

Er, no, It’s not OK

It’s not okay with YOU. Which fact carries as much import as the fart of an emaciated squirrel.

You weren’t so happy when old Clarence tried “extending the meaning to incorporate new realities,” but you’re on solid ground. Because something.

That word, “inapt.” It does not mean what you think it means. I say this with assurance because you keep using it in the wrong context.

Now go away or I shall taunt you again, you sillily righteous and righteously silly shit-for-brains. <== THIS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT YOU DO GET THAT MUCH, YES?

 
 

Not only can I say “projection,” I understand what it is. And I’m not the one calling you names and then laying that very accusation at your door.

Denseness level: neutronium.

 
 

I guess the general premise here is that English is immutable and analogies are allowed NEVER unless it’s to compare inaptitudes that I SAY ARE EQUIVALENT!

 
 

You ever hear anything like this?

Geez, no. We do Wild Turkey and Southern Comfort up here with no man card swiping at all. But then this ain’t Alabama, ya know?

 
 

deadrat said,

English is immutable and analogies are allowed NEVER unless it’s to compare inaptitudes that I SAY ARE EQUIVALENT!

Ahhh, NOW I understand what you’re on about!

Also FYWP

 
 

I am expecting an LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL moment from deadrat shortly.

 
 

Speaking of the death of meaning, Jeff Bezos is going to buy the Washington Post.

“Every member of my family started out with the same emotion—shock—in even thinking about” selling The Post, said Donald Graham, the Post Co.’s chief executive, in an interview Monday. “But when the idea of a transaction with Jeff Bezos came up, it altered my feelings.”

Added Graham, “The Post could have survived under the company’s ownership and been profitable for the foreseeable future. But we wanted to do more than survive. I’m not saying this guarantees success but it gives us a much greater chance of success.”

The $250 million CASH purchase may have helped alter his feelings.

 
 

It shouldn’t be inapt metaphors that distort the meaning of one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly book of American racial history.

You still haven’t explained how applying the term “lynching” to this unjustified, and unpunished and publically accepted (by way of acquittal) murder is wrong or somehow trivializes the exact same thing happening at any time previous to this example. It WAS a lynching. There were mobs of assholes telling us that Zimmerman had every right to shoot an unarmed minor because he was black, other black males commit crimes, there’s some great mystery surrounding this drink he bought (has to be drugs, because he’s black–duh)…

How is this not like the bullshit charges of “taking liberties with a white woman”, therefore justifying being murdered?

 
 

Slow play troll is slow.

 
 

How is this not like the bullshit charges of “taking liberties with a white woman”, therefore justifying being murdered?

tsam you are SO st00pid! Because the public approval came AFTER, not before, and also IT WASN’T DONE BY HANGING.* Clearly has NOTHING in common with those old time lynchings. Gaaad, you are unbelievably worng.

*props to whoever said that upthread

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

I thought it wasn’t lynching because electing Barak Obama means that racism is over and therefore things like affirmative action and the voting rights act are just quaint anachronisms that need to be dismantled pronto. /sarcasm

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Every other time where a person from a privileged group kills a member of a less powerful group can be called “George Zimmermanning”.

Zimmerdammerung!

 
 

Only two hunnert fitty big ones for the WaPoop? Even in light of NYT selling off their $1B+ Boston acquisition from 20 years ago for like $25M or something, that sounds a bit cheap.

 
 

I wonder how many columns there will be about taxing internet purchases.

 
 

tsam you are SO st00pid! Because the public approval came AFTER, not before, and also IT WASN’T DONE BY HANGING.*

Oh, well that changes EVERYTHING.

Let’s go with mercy killing instead.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Well, my point in quoting the OED upthread was the “public” nature of “lynching” as deadrat defines it was not a necessary part of the definition. Does anyone think the Civil Rights workers in Mississippi weren’t lynched, simply because it was done in secret and the murderers weren’t found till much later? It’s the prospective intimidation that defines “lynching” to me.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

*cracks open door, peers around*

Ruh roh.

*sneaks away*

Just back from a ten mile walk, myself, and feeling the same way.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

that sounds a bit cheap.

Between the liabilities in the accounts and the liabilities on the op-ed page, the board is probably giggling like fiends at this payout. I have no idea what Jeff Bezos’ politics are, but here’s hoping that with the end of Kaplan ownership, they get a little critical coverage of madatory testing, for-profit charter schools and education ‘reform’ in general.

 
 

Well, my point in quoting the OED upthread was the “public” nature of “lynching” as deadrat defines it was not a necessary part of the definition. Does anyone think the Civil Rights workers in Mississippi weren’t lynched, simply because it was done in secret and the murderers weren’t found till much later? It’s the prospective intimidation that defines “lynching” to me.

QFT.

 
 

I wonder how many columns there will be about taxing internet purchases.

The cost of the paper will vary depending on where the reader is located.

He said, “There would be change with or without new ownership. But the key thing I hope people will take away from this is that the values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners.”

Hah!

He did not buy Slate, apparently.

“If Jeff is unhappy, wait five minutes,” his wife has said of him.

Gack.

 
 

It’s the prospective intimidation that defines “lynching” to me.

That makes sense. I also would think that there is a predisposition factor to commit heinous crimes, due to the perception of some kind of justification based on race/gender/religion, etc…

It IS all done to send a message. It IS done to intimidate, and there is a nauseatingly large contingent of scumbags who feed into the perception that being a part of a different race means a murder is less of a murder.

 
 

This guy REALLY believes the story Trayvon pulled some professional MMA moves on Zimmerman? Hahaha

 
 

Also, if you’re gonna manufacture meat in a test tube, go for the ribeye or porterhouse, not fucking HAMBURGER. Geez. WTF?

I have to say, the thought of being able to grow my own ribeye and bacon is awfully intriguing. I LIKE IT.

 
 

blockquote>“THEY BROKE THE LAW! THEY’RE ILLEGAL! THEY DESERVE NOTHING! BECAUSE THEY BROKE THE LAW! LAWWWWWWWWW!!!!”

A quick Ctrl + F didn’t find this elsewhere, so…my only addendum to the fine points in the main article is that yes, the Right-Wing seems to get absolutely pyschotic about laws that are potentially broken – IF they’re broken by people “not like them”. But laws broken by people white people who they want to be? Like the CEO’s of corporations? No big deal at all.

So, the almost certainly white heads of business who hire those illegals? Nowhere near the amount of invective. Same with banks that are even caught laundering drug money, companies making money from corrupt “Islamofascist” regimes, etc. etc. etc.

It’s even more completely transparent. And it makes all it even more projection than fucking ever.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

This guy REALLY believes the story Trayvon pulled some professional MMA moves on Zimmerman? Hahaha

My favorite part of the trial was when Zimmerman’s MMA coach testified that Zimmerman had taken a year’s worth of classes, but still couldn’t defend himself from a kid who was fifty pounds lighter than him.

A few years back, a sensei of mine was asked what he thought of MMA, and he replied, “It has no warmth in it.” With the sudden popularity of it, and the newfound repurposing of other gyms to teach MMA, it pretty much stands for “More Money, Asshole!” now.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Also, if you’re gonna manufacture meat in a test tube, go for the ribeye or porterhouse, not fucking HAMBURGER. Geez. WTF?

Uh, the problem is made obvious by your very request, no rib or T-bone, no ribeye or porterhouse. Maybe the whitecoats can build lattices for the vat-meat to grow on, but it wouldn’t be quite the same.

 
 

Uh, the problem is made obvious by your very request, no rib or T-bone, no ribeye or porterhouse.

I know, but that’s NOT going to stop me from throwing a temper tantrum about it.

 
 

Does anyone think the Civil Rights workers in Mississippi weren’t lynched, simply because it was done in secret and the murderers weren’t found till much later? It’s the prospective intimidation that defines “lynching” to me.

Right, there is motive. I don’t give Zimmerman the credit of saying he sat there and thought “I’m gonna show these darkies not to walk down the street when George “Big Balls” Zimmerman is on patrol.”

He’s a panicky chickenshit who started a confrontation because he had his trusty metal penis with him. Hence the near fatal head wounds scuff marks one the back of his head to justify the shooting. Everything about him reeks of fuck up and flop sweat. His ability or desire to come up with a plan to intimidate African-Americans? Nil, because that carries personal risk. I bet he shits himself every time he sees a brown face, even if it is on the TV.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I bet he shits himself every time he sees a brown face, even if it is on the TV in the mirror.

Adjusted to account for self-loathing.

 
 

Which is why, in the long run, Zimmerman’s biggest fans would shoot him if he tried to marry one of their sisters.

[Insert Because that would be taking their wives/other incest joke here.]

 
 

“This documentary will be a non-fiction look at the life of a former First Lady and Secretary of State. Instead of making premature decisions about a project that is in the very early stages of development and months from completion, we would encourage the members of the Republican National Committee to reserve judgment until they know more,” the statement said. “Should they decide not to participate in debates on CNN, we would find it curious, as limiting their debate participation seems to be the ultimate disservice to voters.”

SPANK!

 
 

Also, if you’re gonna manufacture meat in a test tube, go for the ribeye or porterhouse, not fucking HAMBURGER. Geez. WTF?

Baby steps. The folks that tried the burger said it was flavorless and not fatty enough. It did look like a hamburger, if I recall. But we’re light years away from a … tube-steak?

The whole stunt seems gross and stupid.

 
 

Uh, the problem is made obvious by your very request, no rib or T-bone, no ribeye or porterhouse.

Yeah, I’m guessing there are texture issues best solved by grinding. Seems like filet might be a first step in a steakly direction if they could figure out marbling, or maybe organ meats would be easier to replicate.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Seems like filet might be a first step in a steakly direction if they could figure out marbling, or maybe organ meats would be easier to replicate.

One could make a lot of pies out of a kidney the size of a watermelon.

 
 

Also, if you’re gonna manufacture meat in a test tube, go for the ribeye or porterhouse, not fucking HAMBURGER. Geez. WTF?

They’re working towards The Restaurant at the end of the Universe, where they genetically engineered animals that wanted to be eaten.

 
 

Right, there is motive. I don’t give Zimmerman the credit of saying he sat there and thought “I’m gonna show these darkies not to walk down the street when George “Big Balls” Zimmerman is on patrol.”

He’s a panicky chickenshit who started a confrontation because he had his trusty metal penis with him.

i don’t either…while i don’t think he was a fan of blacks, i also don’t think he had the other thing that i always associate with lynching: the straight up belief that a race, a gender, or sexual identity is inferior and there is nothing wrong with killing them…one thing i forgot about emmett till (and i don’t know how i could have because when i re-read it today i almost puked, seriously) was this:

Milam: “Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I’m no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers — in their place — I know how to work ’em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain’t gonna vote where I live. If they did, they’d control the government. They ain’t gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he’s tired o’ livin’. I’m likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. ‘Chicago boy,’ I said, ‘I’m tired of ’em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I’m going to make an example of you — just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'”

the utter belief that some people are so inferior and you are not, that there is nothing else to do for them, to cure their ‘hopelessnes’ except to kill them…

and i don’t think zimmerman had that mindset…yeah, i do think he was a racist, but i think he’s more of a paranoid wanna-be with a metal penis than a lyncher…although the aftermath of the crime, including not arresting zimmerman and the celebratory air and the ‘black kid=drugs=thug=kill him before he kills us mob mentality does carry a whiff of a lynching…

 
 

Right, there is motive. I don’t give Zimmerman the credit of saying he sat there and thought “I’m gonna show these darkies not to walk down the street when George “Big Balls” Zimmerman is on patrol.”

Really? “These ass holes always get away with it!” Then chasing him down. He may not – even probably did not – think he was setting out to to kill the kid. But there can be no doubt that he was thinking “I’m going to show them darkies.”

Whatever, it has zero to do with the topic as provided by Provider_UNE, the topic of lynching. Are you deliberately misunderstanding what nearly everyone else here (with exactly one other exception) says is a viewpoint worth discussing?

 
 

Right, there is motive. I don’t give Zimmerman the credit of saying he sat there and thought “I’m gonna show these darkies not to walk down the street when George “Big Balls” Zimmerman is on patrol.”

I bet you’re right about GZ himself, but his fans seem to appreciate how he made that point for them. Further, GZ seems none to eager to set supportive people straight about his views. I wonder how many times somebody tried to send him money for legal fees, accompanied by racist words of praise, and GZ replied, “no sir or madam, I cannot take your gift, and must correct you about the nature of my deeds.”

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

No, one of the ugliest chapters in American racial history involved the public participation in and celebration of the extrajudicial killing of black people to keep in place a system of thorough oppression.

Again, the term much predates the incidents you insist are its only exemplars, and public participation is not a necessary part of the definition.

 
 

The whole stunt seems gross and stupid.

Really? I think it’s awesome. No E.Coli, they could actually add nutrients and remove the cholesterol building components…And of course taste and texture will come in time (hopefully not at the expense of health). Also, methane from cattle is supposedly a leading contributor to the greenhouse effect, so reducing the number of animals we’re raising in abhorrent conditions and slaughtering is a humanitarian, ecological and food security win. At least that’s my (for the moment) non-cynical assessment.

 
 

the usual modern-day suspects out to defame a dead black teenager,

they are not out to just ‘defame’ him…sadly there is a portion of our country that thinks because he was black and used drugs it’s okay that he’s dead…that’s where the similarity comes in…

 
 

Really? “These ass holes always get away with it!” Then chasing him down. He may not – even probably did not – think he was setting out to to kill the kid. But there can be no doubt that he was thinking “I’m going to show them darkies.”

Long and short of it–he was a black kid that Zimmerman decided had no business walking down “his” sidewalk, in “his” neighborhood. An outsider. I’ve seen people I thought were outsiders in my neighborhood too. The LAST thing I want to do is initiate a confrontation with someone who is just walking down to the street to his/her own home. He felt that this black kid who didn’t belong needed to be dealt with. He may not have set out to kill him, but he certainly did initiate the fight and killed him.

 
 

And they’re aren’t trying to defame Trayvon, they’re trying to defame any and all young black males. That’s the point of calling it a lynching. How many statistics cherry picked from studies that make no mention of socioeconomic conditions or the indisputable crookedness of our justice system did you hear in an attempt to give Zimmerman a pass for being a racist piece of shit who decided he would deal with this blackass thug walking down “his” street?

 
 

I will HOG YOUR THREAD AND FEEL NOTHING.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Really, a filet mignon machine shouldn’t be that hard to design: just extrude a continuous tenderloin and slice them off. Texture, flavor…pah, it’s not supposed to have either!

 
 

I will HOG YOUR THREAD AND FEEL NOTHING.

Test tube pork*: SUCCESS.

*you know it.

 
 

No, one of the ugliest chapters in American racial history involved the public participation in and celebration of the extrajudicial killing of black people to keep in place a system of thorough oppression.

The killing and oppression are more nuanced now. That doesn’t make it any less horrifying and unjustified.

The death penalty is still overwhelmingly unfairly handed down to black defendants. This may not be “extrajudicial” (Though the whole cruel and unusual punishment clause would seem to me makes the death penalty extrajudicial-but that’s another discussion), but these deaths are widely celebrated. Ask a Texan how he likes his death penalty.

Ron White says “In Texas, we have the death penalty, and we UUUUUUSSSEEE it!” to the bloodthirsty cheers and whistles of his moronic audience.

 
 

Test tube pork*: SUCCESS.

Last time I porked a test tube I had to make a very very humiliating trip to the emergency room.

 
 

Suction. You evacuate the air, stick gets stuck. It’s not a pretty sight.

Please don’t tell anyone about this. Kthx.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

deadrat, my mistake was to try to engage you as if you weren’t a complete moron. That’s a mistake I won’t repeat.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Damn, another excuse to post the vid for Detachable Penis?

 
 

Almost missed this one. Whenever my Google Alert for PENIS returns something abut teh Beeb, I skip it because I don’t need to know more about Just… uh I totally do NOT have a Google Alert for PENIS. But if I did, teh Beeb would have popped up. Also too, if you’re curious, I queued up teh Prince Willy.

 
 

[me] The whole stunt seems gross and stupid.

[tsam] Really? I think it’s awesome.

It can be all these things: stunt, gross, stupid, awesome.

Your points are good ones, but it’d be easier to just not eat meat. I won’t insist on that, I’ve had little luck staying off the stuff, myself. I think if I have to make a choice between lab meat and none, I’ll go with none.

 
 

Test tube pork

Don’t see what the big deal is. They’re just trying to eliminate a few steps – we’ve been making babies in test tubes for how long now? Yummy tasty suckling babies.

 
 

I thought McDonalds perfected the artificial hamburger years ago?

 
 

At least one of the people here is exhibiting what occurs to me to be a very whingnuttish trait. That trait being the st00pid idea that what words you use matters more than what you say. Surprising he didn’t lay out a dictionary definition to make his argument. “Oh he said ____ I don’t have to pay any attention to anything else.”

 
 

Actually, vat-grown fish fillets have been around for over a decade.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

At least one of the people here is exhibiting what occurs to me to be a very whingnuttish trait. That trait being the st00pid idea that what words you use matters more than what you say. Surprising he didn’t lay out a dictionary definition to make his argument. “Oh he said ____ I don’t have to pay any attention to anything else.”

I love the complete reversal in the course of a single comment:

Hey, did you know that “awful” used to mean awe inspiring?

So one word can change meaning, but the one he’s chosen as his particular hobbyhorse can’t. Can you get whiplash turning on a dime like that?

 
 

And moar importantly, they’ve been growing bourbon in vats for centuries.

 
 

I dimly remember reading about how the term “water beans” was used by Chinese vegetarians to save face when served fish. No luck Googling that, but found this:

Can fish eat baked beans? I was wondering if fish can eat beans, and if so, can they eat baked beans? If the beans are edible, what do the fish think of them? Do they like eating beans? Is baked a requirement for the beans to be eaten? Will it give the fish an unruly stomach?”

 
 

Animals could be bred………..and slaughtered!

 
 

The fact that it was legal makes it that much worse.

 
 

Hey, did you know that “awful” used to mean awe inspiring?

derp…it still does…

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

Please spare me the argument by dictionary. Am I supposed to believe that the poetasters here spinning their “redefined” metaphors are trying to invoke the mistreatment of Tories when the Articles of Confederation were in force?

No, vacuumbrain, you’re supposed to realize that the meaning of the word in “The Golden Age of Lynching™” as you so fondly call it, was totally different from its original meaning. Language evolves. The word that best describes you, “obnoxious”, once meant “eager to please”. The fact that the meaning of the word “lynch” that you want to canonize is a large change from the original ought to clue you in that new meanings can be attached to it.

 
 

Neither the killer nor the yahoos acted extrajudicially.

Bullshit. That he wasn’t convicted doesn’t change the clear fact that what he did was illegal.

 
 

This sort of thing shouldn’t come as a surprise. When you let any walking personality disorder that wants a concealed carry permit have one and then rewrite the laws to make it easier for them to use it. My only surprise is that we haven’t seen more of these.

 
 

During what I’m calling the Golden Age of Lynching, crowds of white people didn’t gather on festive occasions to voice the idea that it would be OK if one of their black fellow citizens were dead.

so, people like milam just came up with his racism and bigotry without any externals? interesting…

and, since the lynchig itself seemed to be a festive occasion for some, they were implicitly saying that, yes, it was okay if one of their black fellow citizens were dead…and they wouldn’t have considered him a fellow citizen…

 
 

Wow. I apparently missed a giant argument.

Frankly, I am willing to stand behind my personal opinion that the Trayvon Martin murder is in every regard a major modern lynching. By the murderer, it was a single act, a murder after a stalking but one must look to all the context surrounding it.

First up, we have the direct feeding of a gun-nut conspiracy machine directly encouraging to look out for black people being “suspicious”, i.e. existing in “white” spaces or transgressing unstated racial boundaries, including on class (it’s not incidental that this occurred in a gated community that was growing in diversity in a majority white suburban area). Mixed with this idea that if someone is threatening property it is okay to shoot the unstated as black “invader”. And then we had Stand Your Ground.

And Stand Your Ground was born to legalize this exact action. The stalking and murdering of black people with the thinnest excuses. Hence why black people trying to use the law as supposedly intended have been unable to do so. And hence why the jury specifically ruled as a political action to “protect the SYG law” as it were.

And then we get everything else. A community rising up behind the murderer, protecting him from any consequences and appalled at the idea that there should be consequences. As noted, lynching was a community party, a celebration that no one felt ashamed to be apart of. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen from the community around George Zimmerman. The cops couldn’t even be bothered to fake starting an investigation. Only when there was outrage did they bother to fake having a trial. A trial the Attorney General of the state in the post-trial interview basically stated they didn’t want. A trial that was decided by the jury not based on the law either as written or as a just institution, but rather as a direct response to the pushback, directly arguing that their community has the right to murder the children of black families that dare move into “their” neighborhoods.

And frankly, that is lynching, right there. That terrorist threat, that community that cheers and heralds murderers, crafts local protection to prevent any consequence befalling those who murder the “lesser”, and crafts a literal celebration in all the wingnuts who felt personal joy in the fact that their murderer got away with it and they got the extra licks in of smearing a dead kid.

So, yeah, as long as the cheering hordes of those dancing under the Strange Fruit continues, I’m still going to point out the aptness of the direct comparison.

And now, that being said…

 
 

NEW POST!

 
 

Pretty sure the prosecution opened the trial with Zimmerman’s own words, which gave a clear picture of what was going through his distended little brain when he confronted Martin.

 
 

Yes, the term predates the Golden Age of Lynching by more than four decades, but don’t be disingenuous — the term is now synonymous with the atrocities studied by the Tuskegee Institute. […]

Am I supposed to believe that the poetasters here spinning their “redefined” metaphors are trying to invoke the mistreatment of Tories when the Articles of Confederation were in force?

Yes, the term is now “synonymous with the atrocities studied by the Tuskegee Institute,” but crucially, not in such a way that Battleaxe’s OED quote is badly off-the-mark. (Your rejoinder about the word “awful” was badly chosen, by comparison.)

Regarding the OED excerpt, first peel away the sentences about the term’s origin — they’re irrelevant here. Set aside persecuted Tories as well: the term “Lynch Law” had far less to do with them or their era than with the general type of persecution they suffered. You end up with sentences like

“The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence […] It is possible that the perpetrators of these acts may have claimed that in the infliction of punishments not sanctioned by the laws of the country they were following the example of [few give a shit anymore].”

This doesn’t answer all your points, but you should consider it.

 
 

I dimly remember reading about how the term “water beans” was used by Chinese vegetarians to save face when served fish.

They would have to be Buddhist, as there is nothing in Daoism, at least as practiced by the layman AFAIK.

So, then the second question is, why else would eating fish be embarrassing?

Could it be because of poverty? Or could it be because of a subculture adapted to the rivers and waterways of China?

I did find a reference to using fish a certain way, and it’s a Hakka recipe.

Deep fried fish skin is a side dish in the fish ball noodle shop. The intestine is steamed with egg and other ingredients in the Hakka cuisine. The bones are wrapped in a cotton bag to boil in the soup for noodles.

http://eatpack.ru/en/view/normal/17797

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

There’s no evidence that Zimmerman “chased down” Martin. At some point, in fact, he’s on the phone to the cops and says he’s lost sight of Martin. And Jeantel, on the phone with Martin, reports his saying he’s shaken the guy following him..

Yet they had a confrontation. Did Zimmersubman just happen to cross paths with Trayvon as he was walking back to his car from which he was chasing down Trayvpn? Did Trayvon chase down Zimmersubhuman? How can you write such crap and expect to be taken seriously?

 
 

deadrat-

Not a valid point. Lynchers didn’t defame anyone; they murdered people — men women, and children. And they didn’t target “any and all young black males.” They murdered particular people for a particular reason. That is the point of a lynching, to terrorize people by making an example of someone who dared transgress the racist code underpinning society.

Which is exactly what happened.

Trayvon Martin was shot for being black in a place where he “wasn’t supposed to be”. Being a black kid in a gated suburban community where George Fuckwit was fuming on what “he could do” to stop the “thug problem” in his neighborhood (if you can hear the dog whistle being blared to 11).

The community, from the police, to the jury, to the general community in the region, to the general wingnut population, and certainly the general Southern white population, they supported that, protected him from consequence, praised the action.

Because they wanted to send the message that if you try and move to “their” neighborhoods, try to advance out of the economic hellholes, try to walk on “their” streets after dark, there is a price to pay.

It is the same thing that enforces the “roads you are not supposed to walk down if you are black” that are everywhere in the South unofficially, but protected by gunfire. And it’s spreading because wingnuts are chafing under the fact that we have a black president and being black isn’t quite as socially despised these days.

This was very much a direct by blood counter to the idea that things are “getting better for black youth”. Very much in the mind of George Zimmerman. Very much in the mind of those defending him. And unfortunately, on a more unconscious absorption of social messages level, those willing to lessen the crime committed.

Something to make black families scared.

And unfortunately, that’s going to be the case. Already, many black parents don’t let their kids out anywhere close to night, even, or rather especially when they live in “nice” neighborhoods. And I doubt there are many black families are going to want to move into the more diverse gated community where a black kid was gunned down and no one could be bothered to care locally.

It creates an atmosphere of fear that resonates, just as strongly as all the unarmed black men gunned down by cops or the execution of Oscar Grant or to move away from race, the endless number of trans* women murdered every year for being trans*.

These are acts of terrorism. And they carry a social cost.

You might not see the parallel. But I damn well guarantee, that a strong majority of black men see the parallel and it haunts them.

 
 

Really? That’s the best straw man that you could some up with?

It’s not a straw man to notice that you get to compare disparate elements – confirmation of supreme court justice vs. dead kid – and others don’t. That is exactly the issue, front and centre.

 
 

In any case, I’m glad you dropped by, deadrat. Not an endorsement, just an acknowledgment.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

I’m pretty sure deadrat is “Ted & Hellen” from Balloon Juice—same starting in as liberaler-than-thou, but finally couldn’t restrain himself from the creationist “Were you there?” defense of Zimmerman.

You’re not dealing with someone who’s arguing in good faith.

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

There was no fight, asswipe. Zimmerman’s “injuries” didn’t appear until days later. The night of the murder—bupkis.

 
 

but finally couldn’t restrain himself

Overall I lost esteem for him as the thread wore on, but he had his moments and could generate plenty more. Good faith or not, he does argue, and relatively well for someone who’s wrong in the main, if not on some nice details.

It’s a nice break from lazy, obvious, boring, self-absorbed concern-trolling. I had no time to engage further today — I was on deadline — but I was tempted. There will be other opportunities.

 
 

Matthew Shepard got lynched in a manner of speaking, too.

Yup! Agree completely.

deadrat, really??? Your attempt to dig a hole in which to bury any glimmer of the original point raised in some attempt to prevent the supposed assault on the English/Mercan Lexikon is truly fascinating.

Actually, not really…thanks for the concern.

 
 

I’m not disputing that one case concerned a judicial career that should have ended before it started; the other, the life of a black teenager that shouldn’t. But the reasoning is the same bullshit.

No.

 
 

Here we’ve got a cadre of poets pushing their own metaphors […] But the reasoning is the same bullshit.

Let me ask you this, are you a lawyer?… Or more to the point, at the medium-to-low end of that spectrum?

Do you really think there’s no qualitative difference between Thomas’s breathtakingly shitty metaphor, and the ones you perceive here? Of course not. (I suppose you’ll obliquely concede this point as well, in a reply to Tsam or something.)

I get the idea you don’t like figurative language at all. That in spite of your assertions to the contrary, you don’t understand it much. A dig at poets — are you eager to lose? Rhetoric is at least half the game. I’ll tell you what, you can stick to reason, I’ll take all that and sell it. But you can’t or won’t stick to reason.

One minute you’re all about the Trial That Answered the Questions. Next, it’s etymology, until it’s inconvenient. Then it’s logic, plain and pure!… You show restraint re: some subjective judgments, but then, your whole fucking point is that the subjective term “high-tech lynching” absolutely does not apply. It’s somehow uniquely inapt and offensive, moreso than other claims you could expend your considerable energy on … Overall, your approach is called shifting of rhetorical emphasis (IIRC). The whole does not add up to an argument. It could win a case, though.

How fucking mysterious! But instructive and stimulating, as I said before.

 
 

Overall, your approach is called shifting of rhetorical emphasis (IIRC) high-end bullshitting.

 
 

High-end bullshitting.

Well-done.

That’s how I earn my bread these days, as has been the case on-and-off since I was a callow high-school dropout with a wisdom score of around 7. Unalloyed logic will never make the social world go round, thank doG.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

More badgers in my future. Fekking trollzes.

 
 

Some of us have short-term memory and can remember the videos from the night of the murder, showing Zimmerman without a fucking mark on him. Of course, nobody with a memory was allowed on the jury, so when they were shown these pictures and told they were “from the crime scene”, they swallowed it.

These “life-threatening head wounds” didn’t even require a band-aid a few minutes later? Come on!

Besides, we’ve been all over this here many times and you and I have gone back and forth on it at Balloon Juice—I know your strategy is “Deny, deny, deny!” Videos? What videos? They “cleaned him up”—yeah, that’s the ticket!

 
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
 

I don’t know what happened there.

 
 

Zimmerman has ‘superficial’ wounds. Wounds inconsistent with being bashed against a street curb, but not inconsistent with being punched and falling down.

Heck, I’ve taken more and less damage for a single and repeated punches than Zimmerman did – and at no point did I fear for my life. If he was released by the medic at the scene that clean, his wounds were not serious.

Yeah, someone with bruises cleans up pretty good for the next coupla hours. So what?

 
 

I saw someone in the mod squad blamed me for posting Cerb’s LinkedIn pages

It was Linc or Pete, Julie was with me the whole time.

 
 

Dude, seriously, what is your major malfunction?

I mean, the only reason I’m sitting here typing this at 2:10 AM Central Time is I just came off a trip and have nothing better to do while I wait for my jump-seat home.

You’ve been at this all day! Do you have no other life than defending
George Zimmerman against random liberals on some obscure blog?

Are you the President of the George Zimmerman Fan Club or something?

What the fuck, over.

 
 

The Rotting Rodent has spoken his piece, had his moment in the sun, and has been consigned to the bit bucket, or has had comments edited. While I am impressed with its wit, education, acumen, I grew weary of the whitesplaining.

That the wingerverse has deigned to send the A-team to engage and whitesplain to us about a particular definition about lynching must mean that we have made a dent.

Any mod who wishes to undue the done is welcome to do so…

 
 

Gee, Provider, quit acting like this isn’t Dennis’ blog. Get permission before you delete someone he likes next time!

 
 

Get off the iPhone and back to production, Dwight.

 
 

The previous message was brought to you by the Sadly, No! Hot Tub Club, being cowardly towards wingnuts since never.

 
 

You keep using the word neutered. I do not think it means what you think it means, Dennis.

 
 

Your courage here will not passed unnoticed here, Dennis, standing up for someone who isn’t a wingnut against the ranks of the neutered, cowardly group-thinking snark-blogging libruls like me. The final victory is certain.

Bookmark it, libs!

 
 

I think being childless is preferable to being drunk and beating a child one has named after oneself. YMMV.

But, thanks for explicating the dynamics of the double-bind:

On the one hand, if I adhere to the rules of this blog, as explicated by the mods here, as on numerous websites, I’m an intellectual eunuch, my lack of courage and psychological testosterone plain for all the world to see, naked to my enemies, wasn’t that what Cardinal Woosley said?

OTOH, I disregard the rules set forth here by the people who pay for and
run this blog, then they ban me as well as you, and then you’ll find someone else here to pick on. And that’ll be a win! That will show the world, you’re still a winner, not a whiner!

Keep whining for a while, I might check back in a few days after we see how many things you find to b*tch about in my absence.

See yah later, alligator.

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

I really, really don’t like being challenged. I prefer white liberals telling me how deep my thoughts are and then embarrassing themselves trying to defend me. For that, I’ll reward them by deleting posts of those who make them look silly.

This how this snark blog rolls now, beyotches.

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

I really, really don’t like being challenged. I prefer white liberals telling me how deep my thoughts are and then embarrassing themselves trying to defend me. For that, I’ll reward them by deleting posts of those who make them look silly.

This how this snark blog rolls now, beyotches.

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

I really, really don’t like being challenged. I prefer white liberals telling me how deep my thoughts are and then embarrassing themselves trying to defend me. For that, I’ll reward them by deleting posts of those who make them look silly.

This how this snark blog rolls now, beyotches.

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

I really, really don’t like being challenged. I prefer white liberals telling me how deep my thoughts are and then embarrassing themselves trying to defend me. For that, I’ll reward them by deleting posts of those who make them look silly.

This how this snark blog rolls now, beyotches.

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

I really, really don’t like being challenged. I prefer white liberals telling me how deep my thoughts are and then embarrassing themselves trying to defend me. For that, I’ll reward them by deleting posts of those who make them look silly.

This how this snark blog rolls now, beyotches.

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

Al Sharpton and Toure told me everything I needed to know anout Justice for Teayvon a year and a half ago. So don’t anyone be whiesplaining me with the facts if the case. This case is not about facts, dog. Why not, you ask? Because I’ll delete you, that’s why. Any more stupid questions?

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

Al Sharpton and Toure told me everything I needed to know anout Justice for Trayvon a year and a half ago. So don’t anyone be whitesplaining me with the facts of the case. This case is not about facts, dog. Why not, you ask? Because I’ll delete you, that’s why. Any more stupid questions?

 
Dennis nymstealing P-UNE
 

Al Sharpton and Toure told me everything I needed to know anout Justice for Trayvon a year and a half ago. So don’t anyone be whitesplaining me with the facts of the case. This case is not about facts, dog. Why not, you ask? Because I’ll delete you, that’s why. Any more stupid questions?

 
 

Viking Kittens.
I believe you meant to link to this.
ACCORDING TO THE PROPHECY.

 
 

I can’t honestly claim to have read all of these posts, but a text search indicates that no-on’es mentioned Calvinism yet. It is my highly unoriginal thesis that a dumbed-down form of Calvinsim is endemic—‘dumbed-down’ in one way because it identifies the Elect with (depending on emphasis) the financially successful or the positionally favoured (e.g. by being white) and the Preterite (the Damned) with their perceived opposites, ‘dumbed-down’ in another way in that at least basic Calvinism holds that the Elect are not really more ‘worthy’ than the Preterite, they are just the Elect that God has chosen, and they ought not feel pride in their election. (All are sinful from the start, none are able to even want salvation but for the gift of grace, those receiving it are not ‘better’ than the damned, they are just ‘covered’ by the blood of Jesus, which acts like an elven cloak for the soul. Calvinism has no room for the evasions attendant to the Just World Hypothesis—it has a firm belief that the world is just because God is, but no promise that you’ll ever understand His justice.)

I think it is no coincidence that the religious resurgence in the States has been an overwhelmingly Calvinist such. I reflexively disbelieve in conspiracy theories, so I’ll guess that the cultural incentive structures have become such that Calvinism was encouraged because its abuse as an excuse for callousness (the true sin of Sodom) took less energy than promoting the idea that we might need to actually do something to create justice.

Finally: the thing about Calvinist Election is that it is binary and persistent. The Elect are Saved and the Preterite are Damned, those two being construed not as ‘what will happen to them’ but rather as ‘what they are‘. This means that all attempts to make things better for the Preterite are ill-considered, and especially so if they involve any kind of effort or payment on the part of the Elect. And the absolute binary nature of the distinction means that anyone who crosses the line is fair game for any punishment meted-out…so (for example) incarcerated younger and non-violent offenders get raped more than the older and violent, but since they all ‘did something wrong’ it doesn’t matter…the same holds for those who violate the Unwritten Law by dressing ‘slutty’…as our original poster wrote, ‘they broke the law’. Rejecting God’s Authority in any small matter excludes you from His Kingdom and at the mercy of Satan and his angels, and you will know that you deserve all they do to you, forever…and people are just born incapable of doing anything but rejecting God, some of them show the Signs by their dark faces.

 
 

Duh.
on’es –> one’s

 
Bozo the Cocksucker
 

CUNT SHIT

 
 

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