[Terez]

I thought you watched Maddow regularly. (She always starts her show by signing on as he signs off. Usually there's a clean cut but sometimes there's overlap.)

[worry]

Haha, maybe I start to zone out around the end, I dunno. And I thought you only watched her the day after, when the show hits her website! Looks like they rerun the Ed Show at 8pm though, so I'll still be able to catch it.

[Terez]

Oh, I watched MSNBC live for at least a few months before the election, after which I unplugged in favor of my SNES. But even if you watch it online you sometimes get a conversation with Ed at the beginning of Maddow. At the end, it's Lawrence O'Donnell, though they record other hand-offs for the replays which are not always in the same order. Kind of weird...sometimes I've seen the same show with two different hand-offs and no obvious cut.

[worry]

Okay, watched it. Basically turned out to be exactly what it seemed like from the start. A regular dude couldn't believe what he was hearing, and Romney is exactly the cartoon caricature of a silver spoon, born-on-third-thought-he-hit-a-triple kind of guy. It required no embellishment.

[Terez]

Yeah, he was kind of tongue-tied in general. I found it interesting he picked the Ed show. I wonder if it's mostly because the 47% stuff was mentioned most often on that show. (It seemed like every time I turned Ed on he was saying something about 47%.)

[worry]

So CPAC this year, dumber than ever, rejecting Chris Christie, dominated by that unique intersection between the Tea Party and corporate oligarchy that have "purified" the Republican Party from the inside out. Is that a symptom, or the disease?

http://thinkprogress...ority-outreach/
An outlier, or chickens coming home to roost?

[Terez]

I live in Mississippi. There are people among my friends and family who believe exactly like this guy does, though few of them would be brave enough to say it in a forum like this. The 'slavery was good for black people' argument has its roots in the Reconstruction era, when most freed slaves either fled north (out of sight, out of mind) or ended up living in slums because finding work post-emancipation was a complex issue. Of course, in white history, they couldn't get the freed slaves to work because they were lazy. You can see this sort of revisionist history in books like Gone With the Wind. So people came to the conclusion that black people were better off under slavery where at least they were taken care of by their owners; they can extend that conclusion to the modern-day black poverty (without ever considering how profoundly they contribute to it).

[worry]

It isn't all bad news for Republicans though (and that isn't facetious, I promise):
http://www.cbsnews.c...e-sex-marriage/

http://thinkprogress...-immigrant-law/

Is there a bit of post-election times-are-changing opportunism going on here? Well yah, it's politics. But I still welcome these shifts with open arms. I think baby steps are better than nothing. And a whole lot better than walking backwards. Which is like the entire MO of the Tea Party.

[worry]

In other words, I understand the skepticism and the "too little too late" emotional reaction to these kinds of positive shifts, at the emotional level, but in terms of practicality and just good faith I think it's important not to meet positive steps with hostility.

[Terez]

worrywort, on 15 March 2013 - 09:58 PM, said:

It isn't all bad news for Republicans though (and that isn't facetious, I promise):
http://www.cbsnews.c...e-sex-marriage/

"It's a complete redundancy to call something 'gay' which isn't."

Also, "the Golden Rule doesn't cover it"? According to Jesus, the Golden Rule is "the sum of the Law and the Prophets". Matthew 7, the most forgotten chapter in all of Christianity.

This post has been edited by Terez: 15 March 2013 - 10:24 PM

[worry]

Haha indeed. Regardless of what I just said about appreciating people moving in the right direction, and resisting the (petty?) urge to just reduce it to "flip flopper" and cynicism and all that...to embrace good change for what it is, benefit of the doubt, etc. Regardless of all that, if anything my negative opinion of the Tea Party has only been fortified, time and again. Once upon a time I described them as political LARPers. Now I think of them as LARPers who one day cast a political lightning bolt spell, and somehow it turned real and struck a Head Start class full of children. And instead of horrifying them, it just made them hungry.

[Gnaw]

You know that old "law of unintended consequences"? The recent "heartbeat" bans on abortions in Arkansas and North Dakota. Is there a potential that, assuming they are upheld (big if), these laws would have a negative effect on organ donation? It seems to me that moving "alive" back to "beating heart" from brain death could be a big issue.

[worry]

You say "unintended" consequences as if Terri Schiavo didn't happen. ;P

But good question! I think ND is already pushing a personhood bill through that would, as a consequence, restrict birth control in general as a consequence, as well as in vitro fertilization, etc. But that's the first time I've heard anyone bring up that issue on braindead vs. heartbeat and organ donation.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 20 March 2013 - 09:14 PM

[Gnaw]

Personal reason.

Spoiler

During the Terry Schiavo thing I had a discussion with my mother about it. Although an RN, she used the 'playing god' argument. The subject of organ donation came up and she repeated the 'doctors are too eager to get the organs' issue and that, coupled with her strong Christian "pro-life"views is why she wasn't a donor (don't ask; that spun my head around a few times too). She said something about how rare fatal head injuries that make it to the ER with still beating hearts. Two years later she smacks a utility post passenger side impact. The pole collapsed the door into a V and her temple slapped the point of the door edge. It took her 12 days to die. Statistically I think, the average number of lives saved by organ donation is 3.3 in addition to retinas, cartilage, etc.

Back before I decided I didn't watch enough tv to justify a cable bill I watched a lot of BookTV. It's programming C-SPAN runs on weekends. Authors giving talks at all sorts of venues. One weekend during the Aspen literary festival there was a talk by somebody who had been involved with the Karen Ann Quinlan case; an attorney iirc. He pointed out that never before in human history had it been possible to keep a person "alive" long past any point at which the term meant anything. He asked a question of the audience, "if a person is in an ER that is exactly centered on the Four Corners (point where the corners of NM, CO, AZ,and UT), and their heart is still beating but there is no EEG signal are they alive or dead?" 3 or 4 answers later, he said, "the answer is 'it depends"; which state is the head in was the best answer that could be given.
Edit: put spoiler tags around the personal stuff. Don't want it to stall the conversation.

This post has been edited by Gnaw: 21 March 2013 - 06:47 PM

[Gnaw]

worrywort, on 20 March 2013 - 09:13 PM, said:

. But that's the first time I've heard anyone bring up that issue on braindead vs. heartbeat and organ donation.

That's why I referred to unintended consequences. If they manage to move the definition of "alive" from brain dead backwards to beating heart, there are some far reaching potential implications for emergency rooms to nursing homes.

[Obdigore]

http://www.huffingto...p_front_top_art

Quote

Republican North Carolina state legislators have proposed allowing an official state religion in a measure that would declare the state exempt from the Constitution and court rulings.

The bill, filed Monday by two GOP lawmakers from Rowan County and backed by nine other Republicans, says each state "is sovereign" and courts cannot block a state "from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

I love this country. So much.

[Gnaw]

Obdigore, on 04 April 2013 - 09:45 AM, said:

http://www.huffingto...p_front_top_art

Quote

Republican North Carolina state legislators have proposed allowing an official state religion in a measure that would declare the state exempt from the Constitution and court rulings.

The bill, filed Monday by two GOP lawmakers from Rowan County and backed by nine other Republicans, says each state "is sovereign" and courts cannot block a state "from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

I love this country. So much.

Didn't they try that once before? A few years ago. 1860 if I recall correctly.

[worry]

Hey, people who are slightly more conservative economically and not particularly conservative socially, but still realize that libertarians are basically sociopaths, you should either get a hold of the Republican Party or start a whole new one. Either way it's time to give up the ghost on this whole Tea Party thing. Otherwise, after they bring about the apocalypse, you'll be the first they cannibalize, from sheer proximity alone.

[worry]

Or just copy Buzzfeed I guess: http://www.nationalj...zzfeed-20130404

[worry]

Great news out of New Hampshire: a rejection of private prison bids. Wish this would become a trend.
http://thinkprogress...te-prison-bids/