The notion that Russia sought to throw the 2016 election to Trump is a left-wing conspiracy theory. Why would they want to do that? Hillary would have been much friendlier to their interests.
Toilet paper ? And this after the Prince of Poop, The Nabob of Number Two waxed lyrically about bidets ? Really ? How quickly you forget. Get thee to an Amazon near you or wherever you buy your plumbing supplies. Just avoid the Old Faithful model.
Ah, the 1970-71 school year. Times being what they were, it was a shock to the teachers but not the students to hear about one Saturday night when a state trooper pulled over the football team captain and his buddies' smoke-filled car because of its speed on the interstate: 11 mph.
Loved the David Clark story and love even more that the two of you are collaborating. I assume you know of my association with him, when he was fresh out of art school and working at a local paper. His work on my ten hardback books really made them take off. https://barrylou.com/books-directory/#books-for-children Please give him my best wishes. Yesterday I had my first indoor school concert since the pandemic began and I got to read from my books and show his artwork to the students.
I applaud your correct TP orientation. And I am encouraged to find that there is someone else who suffers from mild prosopopagnosia. I have stopped going to our neighborhood get-togethers because I know that I can spend 15 minutes in a wide-ranging and entertaining chat with a neighbor and then never recognize him/her or remember his/her name the next time I see him/her. Also maddening is the situation where you've been thrown together with someone just enough times that it's too late to ask his/her name; this sort of thing happens a lot in organizations.
I suspect that this derives in large part from focusing on the transaction rather than the person. If someone is waiting on me in a store and goes away to take a phone call or get information, I'm never sure that the person who returns is the same person I was dealing with before. Same with waitstaff in restaurants. I'm afraid I view them as generic service personnel rather than individuals.
More in the way of "cultural" embarrassment, I suppose. The Danes had legalized porn --- their view being much like that of the high-born Englishwoman who allowed as how she didn't mind what people did, so long as they didn't do it in the street and scare the horses. But I regress. With salacious glands all aquiver and a freelance assignment from a radio network (you remember radio ?), I presented myself at the Danish Tourist Board in Copenhagen and asked where I might find the world's first oceangoing sex ship --- at least the first one that was honest enough to bill itself as such. If not exactly a flea in my ear, I was sent off with a sniff and purse of bureaucratic lips, which I took to mean that while the Danish government was more than willing to financially benefit from the dramatic increase in visiting men in raincoats, the sex ship was not an officially sanctioned venue, and I was on my own.
I managed to find my way to the proper dock to await the floating porn palace when I heard footsteps. They belonged to a pleasant, 20-something young Danish chap. Seems we were both waiting for the return of the ship which cruised in international waters between Denmark and Sweden. He (let's call him "Jens") was there to pick up his wife, one of the performers. "She does a square," he matter-of-factly informed me. I didn't ask. "I myself also perform, " he added proudly. "I do a homosexual act." I did ask. "Are you a homosexual ?" "No," he explained, "but we are professionals." With my prudish disbelief now expressing itself in rapid eye movement and the need to wet suddenly dry lips, our ship came in and down the gangplank bounced the wife (let's call her "Anja."), wearing what I can best describe as a see-through jumpsuit.
With introductions made and despite my odd and persistent interest in something several inches above Anja's head, off we went to Tivoli Gardens for a late evening dinner. Anja had, in the meantime, made herself less...uh...obvious. After learning that the business was being degraded by too many young people looking for a quick buck, and that American church groups were the worst patrons (always wanting to drunkenly get in on the action), we decided to head to their apartment to drink my duty free booze --- an otherwise expensive treat for them. On the way to their place, Jens knocked on a neighbor's door to invite them to join us. When told to come in, Jens opened the door to a couple "performing," to use the euphemism of the evening. The fellow rolled off, saying they were just rehearsing and he and his partner loudly welcomed me to Denmark with beaming smiles. I must have gulped and mumbled something like "nice to meet you," handed the bottle of booze to Jens, grunted an apology and made my way back into the night with all synapses firing wildly. And I had yet to make it on the ship.
My grandparents were at some kind of church meeting where congregants were asked to reveal their most embarrassing moments, so my granddad told, in great detail, about the time he attended a rodeo and a bull charged at the porta-john, sending it flying. While he was on the throne. You can imagine what transpired. My grandmother’s turn was next. She said, regarding her worst humiliation , “I believe it was the last five minutes.”
The question to me re: the leaks is whether we can safely assume that the information is essentially already known either to the public or to the relevant adversaries. In this case, I chose "you're mostly wrong" on the grounds that the horse is well out of the barn, and further discussion of the contents won't really make a difference in the conduct of foreign affairs going forward.
Having worked in the classified world for years, you never talk about classified info even if it leaks. Not talking about it leaves some wiggle room to think maybe it's not true.
My god man…first you fail to mention 9/11, the financial system collapse and Katrina in noting W’s greatest hits then you actually, and presumably without irony , use the term “ imprimatur of Major Media.” Those leaks were on a gaming platform long before Major Media caught on. There may be some not yet in the high grip of dementia members on the most superannuated age grouping of the 60 Minutes demo who take Major Media seriously, but most everyone else are hardly impressed by its imprimatur.
Your mentioning Gina reminded me that once, in either your column or the old chat, you stated that you and Gina got along well because you were from similar neighborhoods and also that the first names that you were known by professionally were not shortened versions of another name. An alumni directory lists Gina’s full name as Regina R. Barreca, Ph.D. So, did she lie to you, or to the admissions office? Or you to us?
Hi, it's me again—your friendly neighborhood copy editor. I chose "mostly right" in the poll, and I'd like to clarify what I mean. Another way to run this kind of media drop is to move past the fear of editorializing and put it in sane, real context. An example, from my own previous life: I was working for a national news outlet that I'm not crazy enough to name, and was the only human on the desk on a Saturday. I had terrible cramps, and it was a slow news day, so I ate a crumb of a pot cookie for the pain. However, in 2013, cannabis wasn't quite legal where I lived, and the dose was shockingly strong compared to a previous batch, and I was _flying_. Toward the end of a shift in which I had boringly and competently used the wire to cover the Asiana airlines crash at SFO, a TV station ran some racist prank names, and an intern at the NTSB confirmed those names were in fact the correct names of the flight crew. (Remember this one? Sum Ting Wong?) And, because it met the standard for news more or less, I had to write a brief about that while stoooooooned out of my gourd and in no shape for nimble thinking. So I took the brief, updated it with everything relevant I could find, and added a note saying the names were obviously racist and obviously incorrect. Period. Publish.
It wasn't important news like your special forces outside Ukraine nugget, or even good clickbait, but it was factual, reasonable, and not embarrassing. The cases are obviously very different, but it IS possible to responsibly cover someone else's irresponsibility.
Rim up. "Right side up." The way chefs place them on tables. What discerning patron would want to drink from a cup where the rim is placed on a questionable table, or even in questionable storage. You don't live with mom anymore.
i realize now the embarrassing moment I should have shared was the time I shit my pants at work. I had no choice but to remain there for 15 minutes while I waited for someone to arrive to drive me home because I am paralyzed from the chest down... And of course it was the dead of winter in Iowa and the temperature was such that I couldn't wait outside. There was no hiding it because it wasn't an odorless mess...
I had a back spasm and had to hit the floor of the 15th floor of the Sports Illustrated building, 50 somethingth and Broadway, at noontime in front of main reception, and everyone thought it was a heart attack, I swear I hoped it was over for me.
That's embarrassing? That's soul-wrenching. The heart of an embarrassing story is something you brought on yourself, to the ridicule of others. You did nothing to deserve ridicule, it sounds painful.
Since we're discussing toilet paper, remember that The Invitational has that TP Art contest going on right now -- deadline Monday. Anything with the TP or rolls; just take a picture of it . Details in last Thursday's Gene Pool, bit.ly/inv-week-17.
The notion that Russia sought to throw the 2016 election to Trump is a left-wing conspiracy theory. Why would they want to do that? Hillary would have been much friendlier to their interests.
Toilet paper ? And this after the Prince of Poop, The Nabob of Number Two waxed lyrically about bidets ? Really ? How quickly you forget. Get thee to an Amazon near you or wherever you buy your plumbing supplies. Just avoid the Old Faithful model.
To partly explain the fan base in India, here is a run down of the top countries of origin for the Style Invitational Devotee FB page
Top countries:
United States 2,389
Canada 61
United Kingdom 47
Australia 32
India 15
Malta 11
Germany 10
Israel 10
France 5
Philippines 5
I'm settling the over/under for those households that cannot agree. Replace the roll with a box of baby wipes.
Really? Wipes up or wipes down?
Up, down, side to side, in and out...all the directions
Ah, the 1970-71 school year. Times being what they were, it was a shock to the teachers but not the students to hear about one Saturday night when a state trooper pulled over the football team captain and his buddies' smoke-filled car because of its speed on the interstate: 11 mph.
Loved the David Clark story and love even more that the two of you are collaborating. I assume you know of my association with him, when he was fresh out of art school and working at a local paper. His work on my ten hardback books really made them take off. https://barrylou.com/books-directory/#books-for-children Please give him my best wishes. Yesterday I had my first indoor school concert since the pandemic began and I got to read from my books and show his artwork to the students.
I applaud your correct TP orientation. And I am encouraged to find that there is someone else who suffers from mild prosopopagnosia. I have stopped going to our neighborhood get-togethers because I know that I can spend 15 minutes in a wide-ranging and entertaining chat with a neighbor and then never recognize him/her or remember his/her name the next time I see him/her. Also maddening is the situation where you've been thrown together with someone just enough times that it's too late to ask his/her name; this sort of thing happens a lot in organizations.
I suspect that this derives in large part from focusing on the transaction rather than the person. If someone is waiting on me in a store and goes away to take a phone call or get information, I'm never sure that the person who returns is the same person I was dealing with before. Same with waitstaff in restaurants. I'm afraid I view them as generic service personnel rather than individuals.
More in the way of "cultural" embarrassment, I suppose. The Danes had legalized porn --- their view being much like that of the high-born Englishwoman who allowed as how she didn't mind what people did, so long as they didn't do it in the street and scare the horses. But I regress. With salacious glands all aquiver and a freelance assignment from a radio network (you remember radio ?), I presented myself at the Danish Tourist Board in Copenhagen and asked where I might find the world's first oceangoing sex ship --- at least the first one that was honest enough to bill itself as such. If not exactly a flea in my ear, I was sent off with a sniff and purse of bureaucratic lips, which I took to mean that while the Danish government was more than willing to financially benefit from the dramatic increase in visiting men in raincoats, the sex ship was not an officially sanctioned venue, and I was on my own.
I managed to find my way to the proper dock to await the floating porn palace when I heard footsteps. They belonged to a pleasant, 20-something young Danish chap. Seems we were both waiting for the return of the ship which cruised in international waters between Denmark and Sweden. He (let's call him "Jens") was there to pick up his wife, one of the performers. "She does a square," he matter-of-factly informed me. I didn't ask. "I myself also perform, " he added proudly. "I do a homosexual act." I did ask. "Are you a homosexual ?" "No," he explained, "but we are professionals." With my prudish disbelief now expressing itself in rapid eye movement and the need to wet suddenly dry lips, our ship came in and down the gangplank bounced the wife (let's call her "Anja."), wearing what I can best describe as a see-through jumpsuit.
With introductions made and despite my odd and persistent interest in something several inches above Anja's head, off we went to Tivoli Gardens for a late evening dinner. Anja had, in the meantime, made herself less...uh...obvious. After learning that the business was being degraded by too many young people looking for a quick buck, and that American church groups were the worst patrons (always wanting to drunkenly get in on the action), we decided to head to their apartment to drink my duty free booze --- an otherwise expensive treat for them. On the way to their place, Jens knocked on a neighbor's door to invite them to join us. When told to come in, Jens opened the door to a couple "performing," to use the euphemism of the evening. The fellow rolled off, saying they were just rehearsing and he and his partner loudly welcomed me to Denmark with beaming smiles. I must have gulped and mumbled something like "nice to meet you," handed the bottle of booze to Jens, grunted an apology and made my way back into the night with all synapses firing wildly. And I had yet to make it on the ship.
My grandparents were at some kind of church meeting where congregants were asked to reveal their most embarrassing moments, so my granddad told, in great detail, about the time he attended a rodeo and a bull charged at the porta-john, sending it flying. While he was on the throne. You can imagine what transpired. My grandmother’s turn was next. She said, regarding her worst humiliation , “I believe it was the last five minutes.”
The question to me re: the leaks is whether we can safely assume that the information is essentially already known either to the public or to the relevant adversaries. In this case, I chose "you're mostly wrong" on the grounds that the horse is well out of the barn, and further discussion of the contents won't really make a difference in the conduct of foreign affairs going forward.
Having worked in the classified world for years, you never talk about classified info even if it leaks. Not talking about it leaves some wiggle room to think maybe it's not true.
But there is something about getting the imprimatur of Major Media that gives more oomph to the stories.
My god man…first you fail to mention 9/11, the financial system collapse and Katrina in noting W’s greatest hits then you actually, and presumably without irony , use the term “ imprimatur of Major Media.” Those leaks were on a gaming platform long before Major Media caught on. There may be some not yet in the high grip of dementia members on the most superannuated age grouping of the 60 Minutes demo who take Major Media seriously, but most everyone else are hardly impressed by its imprimatur.
Your mentioning Gina reminded me that once, in either your column or the old chat, you stated that you and Gina got along well because you were from similar neighborhoods and also that the first names that you were known by professionally were not shortened versions of another name. An alumni directory lists Gina’s full name as Regina R. Barreca, Ph.D. So, did she lie to you, or to the admissions office? Or you to us?
She uses Regina as a sort of in joke. If someone calls her Regina, she knows this person does not know her well. She was definitely born Gina.
Ok, so she lied to the admissions office.
Hi, it's me again—your friendly neighborhood copy editor. I chose "mostly right" in the poll, and I'd like to clarify what I mean. Another way to run this kind of media drop is to move past the fear of editorializing and put it in sane, real context. An example, from my own previous life: I was working for a national news outlet that I'm not crazy enough to name, and was the only human on the desk on a Saturday. I had terrible cramps, and it was a slow news day, so I ate a crumb of a pot cookie for the pain. However, in 2013, cannabis wasn't quite legal where I lived, and the dose was shockingly strong compared to a previous batch, and I was _flying_. Toward the end of a shift in which I had boringly and competently used the wire to cover the Asiana airlines crash at SFO, a TV station ran some racist prank names, and an intern at the NTSB confirmed those names were in fact the correct names of the flight crew. (Remember this one? Sum Ting Wong?) And, because it met the standard for news more or less, I had to write a brief about that while stoooooooned out of my gourd and in no shape for nimble thinking. So I took the brief, updated it with everything relevant I could find, and added a note saying the names were obviously racist and obviously incorrect. Period. Publish.
It wasn't important news like your special forces outside Ukraine nugget, or even good clickbait, but it was factual, reasonable, and not embarrassing. The cases are obviously very different, but it IS possible to responsibly cover someone else's irresponsibility.
Rim up. "Right side up." The way chefs place them on tables. What discerning patron would want to drink from a cup where the rim is placed on a questionable table, or even in questionable storage. You don't live with mom anymore.
I just checked the poll results and noticed that 88% of us agree with Gene, while 13% disagreed--totaling 101%. Did some folks vote twice?!
On my screen it says 88% and 12%.
Thanks. I wish I'd taken a screenshot, but the important thing is that it got fixed.
If 7 people voted agree, and 1 voted disagree, then it would be 87.5% to 12.5%, which would round to 88% and 13%, for a total of 101%.
Good point, thanks. Just noticed that both of you are named April--speaking of percentages, what are the odds on THAT? :-)
I’m a PhD statistician... this kind of question makes me want to drop the task I’m working on and do some back of the envelope calculations!
...and I am an Engineer which makes me automatically like statisticians.
i realize now the embarrassing moment I should have shared was the time I shit my pants at work. I had no choice but to remain there for 15 minutes while I waited for someone to arrive to drive me home because I am paralyzed from the chest down... And of course it was the dead of winter in Iowa and the temperature was such that I couldn't wait outside. There was no hiding it because it wasn't an odorless mess...
I had a back spasm and had to hit the floor of the 15th floor of the Sports Illustrated building, 50 somethingth and Broadway, at noontime in front of main reception, and everyone thought it was a heart attack, I swear I hoped it was over for me.
That's embarrassing? That's soul-wrenching. The heart of an embarrassing story is something you brought on yourself, to the ridicule of others. You did nothing to deserve ridicule, it sounds painful.
Yes, it's embarrassing. I turned bright red and laughed about it the next day. I did noot get ridiculed for it. I got playful teasing.
Stephanie,
I realize now you were probably replying to Not Simple Ever. It just appears to be a reply to me because it isn't indented below his post.
Since we're discussing toilet paper, remember that The Invitational has that TP Art contest going on right now -- deadline Monday. Anything with the TP or rolls; just take a picture of it . Details in last Thursday's Gene Pool, bit.ly/inv-week-17.
Hi, Pat. Are you out from under?
Rude Gene! Surely you don't share everything.
I always stop EVERYTHING to read The Gene Pool.
Very wise.