Likewise. I was proud of us for about two minutes after Obama was elected, at which point Midnight Mitch announced “We will do everything we can to ensure this is a one term presidency.” Then, two years later, the same people who had elected Obama went back to sleep in the midterms, handing Congress to Mitch and Co., effectively hobbling the rest of what could have been a return to national sanity.
But that's no reason for you to feel dismay. We're not responsible for others' behavior, even if we are a member of the same group as they are. I answered No.
We also have no reason to feel pride when a member of our group does something good.
Gene: I am grateful to you and Rachel for having made the sacrifice to attend this monstrosity but I do admit to sharing the schadenfreude in the sparse attendance...Meanwhile, also thankfully, in Baltimore, Sail250 was glorious with airshows and Tall Ships! Zillions of people all around the Harbor...
It's much less funny when one imagines how fantastic the Smithsonian Festival would have been. Trump admin refused to issue the permits.
"Smithsonian Folklife Festival Gives Way to Trump’s Patriotic Fair"
"The summer festival, held annually since 1967, will not take place as usual on the National Mall, which will instead host the president’s Great American State Fair."
I thought they quit doing the Folklife Festival several years ago. No? My last memory of it was that it was getting pretty tired and approaching lifelessness.
I saw the movie "The Rainmaker" in Europe. It involves a man suing an insurance company to get them to cover his bone marrow transplant. I got embarrassed in the middle of the movie when I realized that this plot would make no sense in a country with national health, and that the audience would now realize that the US is a country that lets people die at the whim of their insurance companies!
Being a 66 years white male provides many opportunities to be embarrassed by my cohort. Having spent my career in public education provides many opportunities to be embarrassed by my cohort. Being from and of the South provides many opportunities to be embarrassed by my cohort. Driving a 31 year old Ford F-150 pickup truck with a Black Lives Matter sticker on the tailgate confused the shit out of people.
Village People was launched in 1977. Does the use of "Macho Man" indicate that the maga-geniuses STILL haven't caught on that the whole concept was to glorify gay culture?
As a member of BMI I used to receive a print newsletter about events in the music industry. I recall back the 80s seeing a photo from an awards ceremony with a caption identifying one of the gathered luminaries as the "inventer of Village People."
I have such fond memories of the 1976 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife which ran from mid-June to Labor Day. It explicitly celebrated our diversity. https://festival.si.edu/past-program/1976
That's not a golf cart; that's a dune buggy, fashioned from a VW Beetle (the older version) frame and a plexiglass body. Popular with the west coast surf crowd of yesteryear.
A shanda for the gay-im is a thing too. Effete opera queen types like Scott Bessent bring shame only on themselves; and the "I want my father's love, is that so wrong!" Log Cabin Republican types trigger mostly contempt; but the WTF! Kevin Spacey types may be enough to make people suspicious of their nice gay neighbors, and that's very bad for the tribe.
just to say, I have so many ethnicities in my background I don't identify as anything but mongrel. Occasionally I will be angry at a business mogul but that's because I misread the name.
If people want objects from all 50 statea AND the territories, including DC, step across the street to the Natural History Museum's new exhibit "Objects of Wonder". Yes, that's a shameless plug.
Smithsonian Folklife Festival - back when they were well funded: Alaska brought in a piece of a glacier; Hawaii - fertility dances; Catalan culture - human towers; Wales - Catrin Finch and great harp music. The nightly live music was amazing and talking to the craftsmen was enlightening.
I was lucky enough to be sent as “training” to help inspect food trucks one year, for the NPS. I mainly walked around in my Class As (rarely worn at my home park) accompanying Public health folks and explaining to visitors what the PHS people were doing so that they could just get the job done.
I did learn a lot about food safety and what to look for and how to enforce compliance objectively and with respect— and I carried a map of the Mall because I learned that all that people really cared about was how to get to the Air and Space museum.
Myself, I scheduled all my breaks and lunches so that I could go hear Sweet Honey in the Rock.
I had suggested that Rachel execute a "drive by" in which you wave through the trees of Mt. Vermin, but alas, perhaps another day. Although you'd HAVE to execute a parallel parking exhibition, too.
That's a misspelling of the irrational fear of snow or winter weather. The phobia you're looking for is Dud-adjacency Disorder or its sibling, Subperformant Contact Intolerance.
Why deny your adoring public? Suggest in future you be conveyed to Loseramas in a large cardboard box from which you can give forth as the Oracle of Whirlpool and yet have no personal contact. Probably healthier in the long run anyway. There have been rumors of rhinotillexomania.
Despite the sad, as in pathetic, state of affairs there was an authentically sad, as in melancholy, artefact of true D.C. cultural history. For the forensically inclined, in the image with the dune buggy, Gene is wearing a tee commemorating the 2016 and last, "Post Hunt." This was marked by a final (final) clue "EndGame," revealed at the Washington Convention Center and not surpisingly scatological, consisting of two full-sized, ornate wooden outhouses on stage. Inside, one man stood with his back to the crowd facing the wall (to symbolize going "No. 1") and another man was seated facing forward with his pants down (to symbolize going "No. 2"). This visual clue guided teams to calculate a mathematical degree symbol, sending them on a race to the exact spot in the city where their phones displayed 12°. Ah yes, the good old days when an estimated 5,000 people could run through the streets of D.C. without fear of being arrested or deported --- or both.
I had to answer, Yes always, to the poll. I am an old, white lady, and old white people have mightily fucked everything up all my life.
Likewise. I was proud of us for about two minutes after Obama was elected, at which point Midnight Mitch announced “We will do everything we can to ensure this is a one term presidency.” Then, two years later, the same people who had elected Obama went back to sleep in the midterms, handing Congress to Mitch and Co., effectively hobbling the rest of what could have been a return to national sanity.
But that's no reason for you to feel dismay. We're not responsible for others' behavior, even if we are a member of the same group as they are. I answered No.
We also have no reason to feel pride when a member of our group does something good.
As an old fart, I fartily agree.
Of course they do; someone has to.
Gene: I am grateful to you and Rachel for having made the sacrifice to attend this monstrosity but I do admit to sharing the schadenfreude in the sparse attendance...Meanwhile, also thankfully, in Baltimore, Sail250 was glorious with airshows and Tall Ships! Zillions of people all around the Harbor...
It's much less funny when one imagines how fantastic the Smithsonian Festival would have been. Trump admin refused to issue the permits.
"Smithsonian Folklife Festival Gives Way to Trump’s Patriotic Fair"
"The summer festival, held annually since 1967, will not take place as usual on the National Mall, which will instead host the president’s Great American State Fair."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/arts/smithsonian-folklife-festival-great-american-state-fair.html
That was a sad read the other day, and then we saw the opening of this pile of excrement.
Thr Smithsonian Folklife Festival was always worth visiting. In 1976, for the Bicentennial the Smithsonian supervised the festival.
What was that? Patriotic Fail?
I thought they quit doing the Folklife Festival several years ago. No? My last memory of it was that it was getting pretty tired and approaching lifelessness.
I saw the movie "The Rainmaker" in Europe. It involves a man suing an insurance company to get them to cover his bone marrow transplant. I got embarrassed in the middle of the movie when I realized that this plot would make no sense in a country with national health, and that the audience would now realize that the US is a country that lets people die at the whim of their insurance companies!
Being a 66 years white male provides many opportunities to be embarrassed by my cohort. Having spent my career in public education provides many opportunities to be embarrassed by my cohort. Being from and of the South provides many opportunities to be embarrassed by my cohort. Driving a 31 year old Ford F-150 pickup truck with a Black Lives Matter sticker on the tailgate confused the shit out of people.
About the Secret Service soundtrack:
Village People was launched in 1977. Does the use of "Macho Man" indicate that the maga-geniuses STILL haven't caught on that the whole concept was to glorify gay culture?
An aside:
As a member of BMI I used to receive a print newsletter about events in the music industry. I recall back the 80s seeing a photo from an awards ceremony with a caption identifying one of the gathered luminaries as the "inventer of Village People."
In that same newsletter, and possibly the same photo, some other pop culture robber baron was identified as the "inventer of Donna Summer."
No.
Oh.
I have such fond memories of the 1976 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife which ran from mid-June to Labor Day. It explicitly celebrated our diversity. https://festival.si.edu/past-program/1976
That festival was great. I remember seeing an exhibition of Irish dancing that featured a young Michael Flatley
Diversity, you say??? Can’t have that…no, no, no!
That's not a golf cart; that's a dune buggy, fashioned from a VW Beetle (the older version) frame and a plexiglass body. Popular with the west coast surf crowd of yesteryear.
It appears to be a rare Meyers Manx four-seater possibly from 1967.
From Gene’s decription, perhaps the most interesting thing there.
Tried to zoom the logo. Best interpretation I could get was a Food Lion grocery logo!
That is the Meyers Manx logo. https://d2wvcs3smy517k.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/08192803/The-Legendary-Meyers-Manx-3.jpg
From its condition, probably a replica.
Thank you for attending this horrible event and writing your hilarious account of it.
A shanda for the gay-im is a thing too. Effete opera queen types like Scott Bessent bring shame only on themselves; and the "I want my father's love, is that so wrong!" Log Cabin Republican types trigger mostly contempt; but the WTF! Kevin Spacey types may be enough to make people suspicious of their nice gay neighbors, and that's very bad for the tribe.
just to say, I have so many ethnicities in my background I don't identify as anything but mongrel. Occasionally I will be angry at a business mogul but that's because I misread the name.
Heinz 57.
If people want objects from all 50 statea AND the territories, including DC, step across the street to the Natural History Museum's new exhibit "Objects of Wonder". Yes, that's a shameless plug.
And there are Bison as well as real dinosaurs!
Smithsonian Folklife Festival - back when they were well funded: Alaska brought in a piece of a glacier; Hawaii - fertility dances; Catalan culture - human towers; Wales - Catrin Finch and great harp music. The nightly live music was amazing and talking to the craftsmen was enlightening.
Don't forget the tuvan throat singers.
I was lucky enough to be sent as “training” to help inspect food trucks one year, for the NPS. I mainly walked around in my Class As (rarely worn at my home park) accompanying Public health folks and explaining to visitors what the PHS people were doing so that they could just get the job done.
I did learn a lot about food safety and what to look for and how to enforce compliance objectively and with respect— and I carried a map of the Mall because I learned that all that people really cared about was how to get to the Air and Space museum.
Myself, I scheduled all my breaks and lunches so that I could go hear Sweet Honey in the Rock.
I don't understand something here. You chose to go to this event instead of the Flushies?!?
Yes. I am party phobic. Cannot attend them. It is a dysfunction.
I had suggested that Rachel execute a "drive by" in which you wave through the trees of Mt. Vermin, but alas, perhaps another day. Although you'd HAVE to execute a parallel parking exhibition, too.
Sounds more like a case of Chanophobia (fear of Losers).
That's a misspelling of the irrational fear of snow or winter weather. The phobia you're looking for is Dud-adjacency Disorder or its sibling, Subperformant Contact Intolerance.
I believe Jeff may be referring to "Loser," a popular Burmese pop ballad by singer Chan Myae Mg Cho.
Then that would make even less sense as the phobia. A stretch even for an Invitational devotee.
Why deny your adoring public? Suggest in future you be conveyed to Loseramas in a large cardboard box from which you can give forth as the Oracle of Whirlpool and yet have no personal contact. Probably healthier in the long run anyway. There have been rumors of rhinotillexomania.
The Capital Weather Gang has a picture of the huge crowds at the top of their forecast today.
https://www.capitalweather.com/live/#dc-area-forecast-a-few-scattered-showers-and-a-storm-today-heat-wave-coming
Wiredog - what do you think, real or AI-aided?
It's amazing. All 47,500 people, except for the ones you see, are wearing the EXACT shade of green as the grass! It's a stunning coincidence!
😆😆😆😆
It’s real.
(Love your avatar!)
Despite the sad, as in pathetic, state of affairs there was an authentically sad, as in melancholy, artefact of true D.C. cultural history. For the forensically inclined, in the image with the dune buggy, Gene is wearing a tee commemorating the 2016 and last, "Post Hunt." This was marked by a final (final) clue "EndGame," revealed at the Washington Convention Center and not surpisingly scatological, consisting of two full-sized, ornate wooden outhouses on stage. Inside, one man stood with his back to the crowd facing the wall (to symbolize going "No. 1") and another man was seated facing forward with his pants down (to symbolize going "No. 2"). This visual clue guided teams to calculate a mathematical degree symbol, sending them on a race to the exact spot in the city where their phones displayed 12°. Ah yes, the good old days when an estimated 5,000 people could run through the streets of D.C. without fear of being arrested or deported --- or both.