Open Thread

Posted by BooMan | Dec 26, 2005 | 43 |

What’s with the strange messages in Atrios’s open threads? What’s up with you?

About The Author

BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

43 Comments

Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 5:32 pm

Ha! you beat me to it … was going to do an Open Thread about Canada’s bizarro holiday:

“Boxing Day retail bonanza brings out the worst in some shoppers“:

The spirit of giving was pushed aside for the fierce pursuit of a bargain Monday as nearly six million Canadians braved the cruel cold and at times crueller crowds for the annual Boxing Day shopping blitz. …

I’ll be danged. They’re usually so polite.

P.S. I read once what Boxing Day is for, but I forget.

(I think Atrios’s open thread notes are cute … they make me giggle regularly … perhaps one needs a strange sense of humor?)
- Cali Scribe on December 26, 2005 at 5:42 pm
  
  for many folks here in the States, I’m surprised that scene isn’t being repeated in malls across the country — what, did Wal-Mart not have any more cheap laptops?
  
  I’m staying far away from any stores today, with the possible exception of the grocery store to get milk and something for lunch and dinner tomorrow…
- Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 5:56 pm
  
  Maybe I misread your intent, BooMan. I thought you were referring to Atrios’s writing, but you may have been referring to the comments IN the open thread?
  
  Like these?
  
  Jack Abramoff is your boy.
  
  Look at his name trolls, you like?
  
  Have a happy new year.
  .
  pukebot | Email | 12.26.05 – 5:02 pm | #
  
  Almost
  Agent Orange | 12.26.05 – 5:03 pm | #
  
  two
  pukebot | Email | 12.26.05 – 5:03 pm | #
  
  FUCK BUSH.
  
  (I am off to write for a moment, I have a story to tell. I apologize beforehand.)
  DWD – Listener in the Snow | Email | Homepage | 12.26.05 – 5:03 pm | #
  
  Where you at, dog?
  BlakNo1 | Email | Homepage | 12.26.05 – 5:03 pm | #
  
  Soon we’ll have the “year-in-review” shit on TV. Isn’t once enough?
  Lime Rickey | 12.26.05 – 5:04 pm | #
  
  Soon we’ll have the “year-in-review” shit on TV. Isn’t once enough?
  Lime Rickey
  
  And who died this year.
  .
  Agent Orange | 12.26.05 – 5:06 pm | #
  
  Our snow storm has finally started. I hope it isn’t a dud.
  NTodd | Email | Homepage | 12.26.05 – 5:06 pm | #
  - BooMan on December 26, 2005 at 6:47 pm
    
    I swear, Duncan makes perfect sense when you talk to him…even if you’ve never watched Buffy.
- Raging Hippie on December 26, 2005 at 6:41 pm
  
  The open thread notes are paraphrases of classic Buffy quotes. But of course everybody knew that, right?
  - Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 9:59 pm
    
    I have a very literate friend who went to weekly gatherings to watch Buffy and drink beer.
    - Other Lisa on December 27, 2005 at 3:00 am
      
      Do you mean me, or do you know someone else who does this too?!
      
      Actually, we drink wine these days, and much cheesy snackage (which isn’t a Buffyism, but should be). We are making our way through the DVDs and are currently on Season 5. That means, still the Buffy musical to watch!!
      - Raging Hippie on December 27, 2005 at 3:52 am
        
        My Yule gift to myself was “The Chosen Collection”–the DVDs of the entire series.
  - maryb2004 on December 26, 2005 at 11:01 pm
    
    This explains why the phrase “Mr. Pointy” comes into my mind every time I visit Atrios. And here I thought there was another reason.
  - Other Lisa on December 27, 2005 at 2:54 am
    
    “They got…the mustard….OUT!!!!”
  - HL Mungo on December 27, 2005 at 8:11 am
    
    He switched in early December from using “Yes” lyrics in his Open Thread posts. I would always recognize the pre 1978 lyrics. Sometimes I would google the lyrics I didn’t recognize (Pathetic in that I really don’t have that much free time). Discovered he had switched to Buffy quotes.
    
    There is a connection between “Yes” and Buffy. “Mutant Enemy,” the Joss Whedon production company is taken from the lyrics of the “Yes” song “And You And I”.
Steven D on December 26, 2005 at 5:36 pm

Did you see this story? Apparently the military is paying for TV news in Iraq as well as print. And they are recruiting pro-war bloggers to come to Iraq and get embedded with the troops so they can buck up all the arm chair generals back home:

BAGHDAD — Retired soldier Bill Roggio was a computer technician living in New Jersey less than two months ago when a Marine officer half a world away made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Frustrated by the coverage they were receiving from the news media, the Marines invited Roggio, 35, who writes a popular Web log about the military called “The Fourth Rail” ( http://www.billroggio.com ), to come cover the war from the front lines.

* * * * *

Pool said he spends a growing portion of his time working to dispel what he calls erroneous tips from insurgents to reporters, including regular reports of Marines taken captive or helicopters downed.

“We now take all of these rumors seriously,” he said. “We also use different [media] to get our messages out.”

He said he recently began distributing his news releases to military bloggers and organizations such as veterans associations. The Marines also took a more direct approach by inviting Roggio to cover their operations.

“A thorough review of his work was taken into account before authorizing the embed,” said Pool. “Overall, it has worked out really well.”

Pool also praised the work of Michael Yon ( http://michaelyon.blogspot.com ), an independent author and blogger who embedded for almost a year with a U.S. Army unit in the northern city of Mosul.

“His reporting was objective, credible and compelling. But most of all, it was independent,” Pool said. “He didn’t have to worry about some editor back in the States altering what he wrote before it got published. Plus, he had no competition from other news sources to churn out a ‘marketable’ product on a day-to-day basis.”

After military officials in Baghdad said Roggio could not be issued media credentials unless he was affiliated with an organization, the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization in Washington, offered him an affiliation, according to an entry on Roggio’s blog. He and two other bloggers launched a new Web site a month ago ( http://threatswatch.com ), where he has posted many stories about his time with the Marines. Most provide detailed accounts of patrols or other outings on which he accompanied U.S. forces.

When news organizations began reporting about the insurgent activity in Ramadi on Dec. 1, Roggio posted “The Ramadi Debacle: The Media Bites on Al Qaeda Propaganda.”

“The reported ‘mini-Tet offensive’ in Ramadi has turned out to be less than accurate,” he wrote, citing information provided by Pool. “In fact, it has been anything but.”

On Dec. 15, when Iraqis voted in nationwide elections, Roggio reported from Barwana, a Western town where turnout was far heavier than in Iraq’s constitutional referendum held Oct. 15.

“Barwana, once part of Zarqawi self declared ‘Islamic Republic of Iraq,’ ” he wrote, “is now the scene of al-Qaeda’s greatest nightmare: Muslims exercising their constitutional right to chose their destiny.”
- sbj on December 26, 2005 at 9:57 pm
  
  Is the sending of pro-war bloggers to Iraq part of a program who’s purpose might be described as;
  
  “We’re sending them over there so we don’t have to listen to them here.”
Militarytracy on December 26, 2005 at 5:39 pm

If your lineage from Lucy was one of those who followed the herds yearly and you don’t follow any herds anymore, you’re all fucked up right about now! At least that’s my excuse for why I would write something similiar and why I’m so fucked up today. Shopping Christmas Sales…..who in the flying hell does that, I can’t even find my ass today. I’m going to follow the neighbors cows around for awhile, seems to make sense today.
- Janet Strange on December 26, 2005 at 11:09 pm
  
  Tracy, I just have to say that that this is going into my “all time great comments” file.
katiebird on December 26, 2005 at 5:40 pm

Just ’cause it’s too weird to keep to myself:
- Militarytracy on December 26, 2005 at 5:42 pm
  
  I feel like I need to shoot it, skin it, and cure it in the sun for the trek North.
- boran2 on December 26, 2005 at 5:50 pm
  
  I’ve posted this before too.
  
  Rove does the rock star thing in anticipation of his upcoming status as unemployed:
  - Militarytracy on December 26, 2005 at 6:00 pm
    
    dump a prick boss from hell, I have felt like a rock star too.
    - CabinGirl on December 26, 2005 at 6:06 pm
      
      There’s nothing so satisfying as kissing off an asshole boss, is there? 🙂
      
      When I quit my job to go into consulting, I was the lead writer on the company’s biggest account, and I had a ton of stuff in my head that the CEO (weenie) still needed…tee-hee.
      
      (I got a 6-month contract from them before I even packed up my desk.)
      - Militarytracy on December 26, 2005 at 6:09 pm
      - Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 6:13 pm
        
        You two are both panty ho’s.
- Steven D on December 26, 2005 at 6:37 pm
  
  Nothing like classic Twilight Zone episodes to bring out “Bush League” comparisons, lol.
shycat on December 26, 2005 at 5:50 pm

so I am whupped and more to come.
What IS it about New year’s Eve that drives people to try to have ‘too much fun’?
Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 5:54 pm

This actor died, according to Raw Story:

“Character actor Vincent Schiavelli, renowned for his eccentric roles in such films as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Ghost, has died.
… Read all.”

I never knew his name, but I sure knew that face.
Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 6:07 pm

My daughter felt badly for me that TV fare sucks so badly right around now, so she rented me a movie as a treat. It’s “City of God,” which I’ve read about and was anxious to see. She’d also seen it, and raved about it.

Well. Hell’s bells.

I found it very hyper.

And I also had a very hard time reading the subtitles at the same time I had to watch what the people were doing.

I kept wishing they’d dubbed the film. (Even though that’s a no-no.)

I suppose all of you thought it was fabulous.
- Syniel on December 26, 2005 at 6:44 pm
  
  I liked that one….but i also agree that it was frenetic. A lot of those foreign films (I’m a buff) you need to see twice. One time to pay close attention to the subs and the second time to actually watch and enjoy the flick.
  
  I’m sorry..but there it is. The price to pay for daring to step outside your culture.
  
  It doesn’t help that not all subbing is equal. Some are better done than others.. and many are the times where i’ve had to get close to the screen and squint at what was written there. (don’t get me started on the colors they sometimes choose for the subs)
  - Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 8:27 pm
    
    Thank you, Syniel. That is what I will do.
    
    (It makes sense … I’ve noticed, particularly with dramas that have a lot of good writing and dramatic action — such as Deadwood or the recent Sleeper Cell — that I benefit from watching the show more than once. Even when it’s in spoken English, it’s hard to hear and see everything the first time.)
    - chocolate ink on December 26, 2005 at 11:55 pm
      
      I haven’t seen that one susan-as for subtitles…once I got used to them I now almost don’t even realize I’m reading along.
Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 6:08 pm

I’m a big fan of Atrios’s instead of Atrios’ … you punctuate correctly, imho.

I think the extra s should be added if that’s how it sounds when it’s said.
dada on December 26, 2005 at 6:16 pm

First there was The Exploding Cow…now it’s Whack a Penguin

click on picture then click to “drop” penguin and again to swing the Yeti’s bat….best personal score 321.1

Passive aggression mgmt….:{)

Later

Peace
- Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 7:14 pm
  
  321 is VERY good!
Oui on December 26, 2005 at 7:23 pm

.

Mahmud Abbas hospitalised: medical sources

RAMALLAH, West Bank (1 hour ago) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas was hospitalised urgently in Ramallah, medical sources said.

The sources did not provide any additional information about his health condition or the reason for his hospitalisation. – AFP/de

President Abbas Receives Patriarch Theofilos III

President Abbas Sends Letter to Pope Benedict XVI on Christmas

Sharon to Undergo Heart Surgery

Sharon New Party Kadima Wants to “Fix” Borders of Israel
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼
Oui on December 26, 2005 at 7:37 pm
.
Indonesia One Year Later – Visit of Aceh Tsunami Disaster Area by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – SBY.

Tsunami News

«« click on pic for story
Indonesian President SBY speaks with students at a Medan school
- DISASTER STRIKES ASIA – QUAKE 8.9 – TSUNAMI WAVE
  ◊ by creve coeur @dKos Dec. 26, 2004
- Worse, Much Worse Beyond Any Imagination
EARTHQUAKE 7.6 NE Pakistan Disaster – 42,000 Dead – Chinooks Arrive
Fri Oct 7th, 2005 at 11:25:55 PM PST

“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Anomalous on December 26, 2005 at 8:10 pm

If anyone is in need of a laugh, Olbermann has a special on right now – an entire hour of “The Best of Oddball”

Good night –
Dean Pajevic on December 26, 2005 at 9:08 pm

From the Los Angeles Times

OBITUARIES
Patricia Van Tighem, 47; Wrote Book About Near-Fatal Grizzly Mauling
By Valerie J. Nelson
Times Staff Writer

December 25, 2005

Patricia Anne Van Tighem, who was almost mauled to death by a grizzly 22 years ago but survived to write a harrowing memoir about the brutal assault and her struggle to cope with it, has died. She was 47.

The lasting psychological and physical effects of the attack she chronicled in “The Bear’s Embrace” led to Van Tighem’s suicide Dec. 14 in a hotel room in Kelowna, Canada, her family said.

“What we keep reflecting on is not why she died when she did but how she lasted this long,” said her brother, Kevin. “She’d had countless surgeries, chronic pain and major episodes of post-traumatic stress.”

In 1983, Van Tighem was hiking with her husband, Trevor Janz, in the Canadian Rockies near Montana when a grizzly protecting her cubs and an autumn meal pounced on Janz.

With staccato sentence fragments, Van Tighem recounted in her 2000 book the horror of watching the bear savage her husband: “Two more steps forward. I stop. A bear? From the side. Light brown. A hump. A dish-shaped face. A grizzly. Charging. And Trevor. Fast. He half turns away. The bear’s on him, its jaws closing around his thigh, bringing him down.”

When she climbed a tree to try to get away, the grizzly clambered after her. The bear swatted her down and began inflicting the damage from which Van Tighem would never recover.

“Crunch of my bones,” she wrote. “Slurps. Heavy animal breathing. Thick animal smell. No pain. So fast. Jaws around my head. Not aggressive. Just chewing, like a dog with a bone.”

Two hikers stumbled upon the couple and helped them to a hospital, where each spouse was desperate to find out how the other was doing.

“Trevor finally just … bellowed, ‘Trish, how are you?’ ” Van Tighem said in a 2003 documentary on Canadian television. “And apparently, I yelled back, ‘I’ve had better days.’ … The whole emergency staff had a good laugh at that one.”

Her facial injuries were extensive. The left side of her face was nearly destroyed, her cheekbone absent, her left eye blind, the eyelids gone. The back of her scalp was missing. “I feel sick to my stomach,” she wrote about looking in the hospital mirror. “What I see isn’t even me.”

Her husband’s injuries were not as disfiguring. The third-year medical student’s jaw and nose had been broken but his spirit was still intact.

“I was young and wild, and I thought … lightning never strikes anywhere in the same place twice. I’m virtually immortal now, and isn’t it great to be alive?” Janz, now a doctor, recalled in the documentary.

Surviving the bear attack was “the easy part,” Van Tighem said in the same interview. “The hard part is what came afterward.”

Van Tighem endured more than 30 surgeries, crippling pain, mental illness and unending emotional anguish.

She began writing her book as a form of therapy to help her deal with the trauma. To her “humble surprise,” her family said, it became a Canadian bestseller.

Every day, she wrote, the attack replayed in her mind. In a recurring nightmare, a bear performed surgery. She was haunted by the happiness she once knew.

The Times review in 2001 called it an important “reminder of what it means to be vulnerable in a world that has little patience for vulnerability.”

She was born Aug. 22, 1958, in Calgary, Canada, to Jack Van Tighem, a school board superintendent, and his wife, Eileen, who raised 10 children.

It seemed only natural that “the gentle soul at the heart of the family” would study nursing, her brother said.

After completing the nursing program at Mount Royal College in Calgary, Van Tighem earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1989 from the University of Victoria in British Columbia. At Calgary’s Foothills Hospital, she worked as a nurse.

Three years after the attack, the couple began building a family and had four children, including twins. They moved to Nelson, Canada, in 1993.

The children, who range in age from 8 to 19, were her “saving grace,” Van Tighem once said.

“It’s quite obvious that what kept her going this long was her determination to give her children the kind of life and mother they needed,” her brother said. “What bumped her back a lot was her frustration at not being able to be that kind of mother.”

When a daughter was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, Van Tighem learned about finding the value “and beauty in people who are so-called imperfect,” she told the Bellingham (Wash.) Herald in 2001.

She became involved with a resource group for families of children with Down’s syndrome and also established the Calgary branch of About Face, a support group for people with facial disfigurement.

In “The Bear’s Embrace,” Van Tighem wrote of the attack in a snowy forest as a constant companion. “People can tell me to stop dwelling on it, to get on with my life, but I am getting on with my life. They can tell me the attack is in the past, but it isn’t. I will deal with it every day for the rest of my life.”

In addition to her brother, husband and children, Van Tighem is survived by two sisters, five other brothers and her mother.
sbj on December 26, 2005 at 9:53 pm

This is a great op-ed by Robert Steinback in the Miami Herald.

Link here.
shycat on December 27, 2005 at 12:14 am

This is scathing–http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n01/print/wein01_.html
Sorry, you all know I am a lame about linkies
- Gaianne on December 27, 2005 at 2:21 am
LookingUp on December 27, 2005 at 3:14 am

(Which if you’ve seen a certain cartoon, is very very funny….)

The long-haired cat was in the same nest in the green wet grass in the backyard today! I snuck out the front door, around the house, and got close to it to take a pic.

It was sleeping, but its ear was twitching… as the rain fell on it! Dangest thing.
- sjct on December 27, 2005 at 8:31 am
  
  to see this picture even tho in this case it may not be worth a thousand words since the 65 words you wrote painted such an excellent image in my mind.
  - LookingUp on December 27, 2005 at 4:36 pm
    
    Thanks. I think it would be a hit (if it’s not too blurry, a big problem I’ve had with digital pics lately).
    
    But I don’t know how to post pics here. Yeah, I’ve read the descriptions, but sounds too complicated to bother with.
Oui on December 27, 2005 at 7:05 am
VIENNA (Austria) – The name Arnold Swarzenegger has been removed from the country’s most important Soccer Stadium as a result of Austrian criticism for California Governor Swarzenegger.

«« click on pic for info

Terminator Terminated!

Stadt Graz – Austria
Fran’s Breakfast Article @EuroTrib :: Spiegel Online
SIEGEL’S DAILY TAKE – Schwarzenegger Terminating Ties With Austria
Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 10:01:01 PM PDT

“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

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