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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. He's like fucking Obi Wan--you thought you killed him, but now he's even more powerful.
  2. Yep--I'm ready to convict right now.
  3. So great job, Tennessee GOP--you expelled two guys over a holiday weekend, and in the meantime you just generated hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least) for the Tennessee Democratic Party. And you demonstrated yourselves to be feckless racists with no loyalty to democratic institutions or norms, only a lust for power outdone only by a desire to ensure that the darkies know their place. Just a bang-up job all the way around.
  4. Why shouldn't Hitler's teapot be disposed of and forgotten? It's a fucking teapot. It's not a fine piece of china or anything; it's just a run-of-the-mill teapot. There were many exactly like it that were manufactured. And many of those have been disposed of and forgotten. The only thing that is notable about the teapot is the identity of its owner. But does the teapot help us remember its owner? Was he some famous tea aficionado? Did that teapot have some unique link to some world changing event? The answer to all these questions is "no." The only reason to own the teapot is to own something that Der Fuehrer owned. And that type of relic-hoarding is generally something we do only with saints and heroes. I'm not saying owning Hitler's teapot makes Harlan Crow a Nazi. Harlan Crow's dozens of years as a supporter of racist policies in Dallas city politics tells you that. The teapot is just another piece of evidence in a pretty damning case for the prosecution.
  5. We are getting progressively closer to civil war with this. What Abbott is saying with this is that political murder is ok if you’re on Team Red. But that can go both ways. All it takes is the DA announcing that he may not prosecute anyone who shoots a Republican officeholder in Travis County, and it’s game fucking on. And frankly, anybody shooting Abbott would have a better claim of self-defense than Daniel Perry. Between his handling of Covid, the ongoing catastrophe that is DFPS, his insistence that criminals and lunatics have as many guns as they can carry, and his prevention of people getting the healthcare they need, Abbott has killed more Texans than Santa Anna.
  6. Just got back from seeing it in 3D with the kids. The 14-year old, who is too cool for everything, professed not to love it. But I and his sister really enjoyed it. The soundtrack is fun, but “Peaches Peaches Peaches” kills it.
  7. Amazing comeback—never a doubt, really.
  8. That's not what I had in mind. Biden ought to make him his running mate in 2024. It gets rid of the dead weight that is Kamala Harris, but nobody could be too pissed about losing a Black woman from the ticket if you're replacing her with this guy. And putting him on the ticket draws attention to two big issues that are key to the Democrats' chances in 2024: 1) the GQP efforts to erode our democracy, and 2) gun violence that is made possible by the GQP's refusal to do anything other than make more guns available to more people.
  9. This guy needs a bigger stage than the Tennessee fucking legislature.
  10. By the way--you can still walk along Watling Street in the middle of London. From the Mansion House Tube stop, go north on Bow Lane a block, and there is Watling Street. Look west, and you'll get a great view of St. Peter's dome framed by a narrow street lined with pubs and restaurants. Go around 5:30 on a weekday, and you'll be surrounded by bankers and lawyers from the City who are stopping in at their preferred pubs for a pint. Grab your own pint, and hang out outside--it's expected that you may drink your pint out on the sidewalk right outside the pub. And while you're enjoying your pint and the view of St. Peter's dome, you can ponder the thousands of years of history that have walked over that very street. From Iron Age farmers going to sell their produce at Westminster to the Roman legions who marched into Londinium along the street to the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales--they all walked right where those bankers and lawyers are walking today.
  11. Go back a thousand years before that. What is "English" is defined largely by the boundaries of Roman Britannia. Scotland was beyond Hadrian's Wall. The Romans canceled their plans to invade Hibernia. And Roman control over (particularly northern) Wales was always tenuous. And inside Roman Britannia, there was a transformation in terms of genetic history, aristocracy, and culture. The Romans sent in soldiers from across the Empire. And after they had served their 25 years in the legions, those soldiers often settled in Britain with their often-native wives. So the people who populated the major cities like Londinium or Eboracum or Mamucium were half-Briton and half-Dacian or half-Latin or half-Italian or half-Spaniard. They adopted Roman culture--as Tacitus remarked, "All this in their ignorance they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude." And after the Romans, there was the Anglo-Saxon invasion. And after that, there were the Danish invasions. Those peoples didn't eradicate the island's inhabitants; they needed them for labor. They intermarried with them. So by 1000 AD, your average Englishman was a mix of some bits Briton, some bits Germanic, perhaps some Danish, and some bits from elsewhere in the old Roman Empire. And even before the Romans, you can go back and find evidence of Neolithic "invasions" of Britain from the continent. Over the centuries, that island has seen wave after wave of "invasion" and resettlement. The remarkable thing about it, however, is the continuity. The Roman roads often followed roads that had existed from the Neolithic Age. Watling Street was a thoroughfare hundreds or thousands of years before Caesar stepped foot in Kent. And even today the lines of farms still track a lot of the lines laid out by Neolithic farmers and adopted by the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, and then the Normans. Counties and districts are often centered on Iron Age hill forts. And many aspects of English culture would be familiar to a pre-Roman Briton (eels, anyone?). There was genetic and cultural mixing, but the preexisting people and culture was never wiped out. And perhaps that's the most remarkable thing about the people we now regard as "English"--despite all of the "invasions" by various peoples, the amount of genetic and cultural continuity is really quite remarkable.
  12. Cain & Abel's closing, and Abel's on the Lake just closed a few months ago. I guess the family is just shutting down the restaurant business.
  13. I cannot fathom that a majority of the Tennessee House is going to vote to expel those Members. But if they do, then there's a real crisis of electoral legitimacy that faces the Legislature.
  14. It didn't. And I had half a mind to neg myself for the jinx. But honestly--there was no way I could have foreseen that we'd get only one hit (that's it? One goddamned hit?) off the fucking Orioles after they gave up 28 runs in three games to the fucking Red Sox.
  15. Oof--getting into the Orioles bullpen in the first of the first game of a series is probably not great for Baltimore, judging from its cool 8.42 ERA.
  16. There's no fucking way I'm going to get to go skiing after Mrs.LL blew out her ACL on the mountain at Taos a few years ago. But yeah. I'm not going to win this fight. Mrs.LL wants to go to Amalfi. So we're going to Amalfi.
  17. Starting to think about Italy for Spring Break next year. Both kids have now taken enough world history in school to be interested in Rome, so that's where they're keen to go. And Mrs.LL is interested in heading down to the Amalfi Coast. So I'm thinking four days in Rome (leave Thursday, arrive Friday late afternoon, and have Saturday through Tuesday in Rome). Wednesday for travel/see Pompeii along the way. And then Thursday through Saturday for the Amalfi Coast. Does that sound reasonable? A few things: I have no idea what to do in Amalfi. Do we just drive around and . . . I don't know--see cliffs? Maybe rent a boat for a day or two? And how long do I need down there? Frankly, if it were up to me, we'd spend the entire goddamned week in Rome. But shit's no up to me. I'm just the guy planning, organizing, and paying for the entire goddamned adventure.
  18. So for a completely idiosyncratic perspective, I don't like this. I have the game on one screen and am writing a brief on the others. And if you're only half-paying attention to the game, it's suddenly real hard to follow. I look at the game, and the Phillies are up to bat and have one on and one out. And the I look over at the brief, write a paragraph, and by the time I look back, the Rangers are up and already have two outs. Over the past 30 years, baseball fans have gotten pretty well conditioned to be able to follow a baseball game while doing something else entirely. And now that's a lot more difficult. And it's really very jarring (and somewhat unwelcome).
  19. Yeah, sorry my friend. But there's a judicial race here in Travis County that's pretty fucking important to my day-to-day life. So I'll be voting in the Democratic primary. And anyway--there are no statewide races in 2024 that are going to have a competitive Republican primary. And in any of my congressional/legislative districts, the Democratic primary is where the action is.
  20. I'm actually really very curious. Please let me know when you find out.
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