I know you resent working on the weekend. But I don't think anybody else could have mixed schadenfreude with sincere sympathy like you did here. And the way the fucked family was put on display for the RNC was just sad.
@squeakel: I guess it shows what a nasty partisan fuck with a ball of black ice and bad karma instead of a heart I am, because I find all of this hilarious. As Pareene pointed out, this carnival of dysfunctionality was held up as some kind of embodiment of Real America. They may be. There's a reason why I won't go to small towns. I've been to too many such hamlets that are too full of xenophobic cretins with nothing more pressing on the agenda than chillin' at the Wal-Mart (only they call it Wally-World, since I guess National Lampoon's Vacation references pass for repartee in Small Town America). My experience with small southern towns is that they love you as long as they think you're just like them. As soon as they figure out you're not--your skin's the wrong color, that guy you're with isn't your brother, you've got short hair (if you're a woman) or long hair (if you're a man), you look like you might be prone to abortions--then the full panoply of hatred comes boiling up. And I wouldn't be cackling with glee, and a certain amount of recognition (hello, ex in-laws!), if the GOP hadn't dug up Caribou Barbie and all her wacky friends and relations and tried to convince us that she was perfectly qualified to be Leader of the Free World (since they're still stuck in the Cold War) with a straight face. They did, and I'm going to keep snarking.
Yep, it sucks to be them, and if Grandpa McCain and Caribou Barbie had been elected, it would have sucked a whole lot more to be the rest of us. Sympathy's in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.
"My experience with small southern towns is that they love you as long as they think you're just like them. As soon as they figure out you're not--your skin's the wrong color, that guy you're with isn't your brother, you've got short hair (if you're a woman) or long hair (if you're a man), you look like you might be prone to abortions--then the full panoply of hatred comes boiling up."
Sounds like the intolerant attitude held by 90 percent of the commenters on this site. by the way, can you add a few more cliches and superficialities to your next comment?
@jonasgrumby: sure, i can add a few more superficialities etc, 'cuz it's the holidays, but all those are drawn from my own experiences, including in-laws in towns so small they had to go to the next one up the road for a Wal-Mart (and yes, they called it Wally-World. My same-sex partner and I had family picture taken with both his family and mine. We were the only elements in common between both sets of pictures, and other than being male and of European extraction, look nothing alike. When i had them framed, i was told, "you and your brother have some nice pictures." That was all the bigger their conceptual world was, and is, and the look on the woman's face when i explained it to her told me all i needed to know.
So...what you quoted is, in my experience in the deep south, absolutely true. If you think about it (give a try, sparky), cliches are based on truth.
And tolerance is a two-way street, and outside of college towns, there's very little of it in small-town America if you deviate even slightly from their norms. Maybe it's simply true of humanity in general, and there's just a bigger mix in larger, more cosmopolitan areas. But life in small-town America was a constant assault on my sensibilities, and i got out as quickly as i could.
So yep, why should the commentariate in this snark sanctuary do anything other than mock and give thanks to a loving God, who they probably don't believe in, that they don't live in Wassilla or any of the other decaying shitholes that besmirch the maps of the republic?
Sarah Palin lives is a glass house, and as we saw during the election, she, or the handlers pulling on her strings, had no problems throwing rocks (cliche alert, and it's a twofer!) at those of us in what i presume they'd call the fake America.
@Hydroceph: I forgot the best part...someone told me he knew i wasn't a local because i have all of my teeth. I don't, as a matter of fact, but that's because of orthodontia rather than meth or bar fights.
Wow. That piece was simultaneously not funny, oddly hateful and judgmental of people in small towns, and condescending toward Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. Congrats, Pareene, you got a hat trick.
Do any of us really know whether Levi's being "forced" to marry Bristol? I treat this the way I treat all accusations re: the Clintons' marriage. It's none of our business, and don't make judgements as you're not in the relationship. Remember: Being snotty and rude only gives conservatives ammo. Kill them with kindness.
Obama won. Can't we just move on from all of the McCain and Palin hating? It got boring back in October.
@BookishLookish: Actually, I don't have kids (but I am married, hence the name). But thanks for assuming the wrong thing and proving my point about not judging people!
@Wifezilla: Kill them with kindness? Please. I'd rather annoy the shit out of them with facts. Also: as a former small towner I can assure you that there is no such thing as a pastoral life in American anymore. Small town Ameirca is filled with homophobes, xenophobes, meth smokers, divorcees and alcoholics. And they're poor and under-educated. That is not a stereotype and when the right-wing fuck-tards stop shoving down my throat these "real America" platitudes and when they stop painting this false, rosy American Gothic image of small town America, I'll stop throwing facts and figures in their face and be a little nicer to them. Until then, they're alcoholics that don't admit they have a problem. It's incumbent of THEM to be a little more humble, then I'll back down. As long as they spew hateful hubris and lies about "real Ameirca," then I bite back.
@gawkimo: Oh, and by the way, Sarah Plain chose to be a public figure. The junk in her trunk is not off limits. If conservatives don't want to be ridiculed, don't nominate women whose own daughter is engaging in unprotected pre-marital sex and becoming a baby mama. These are the same people that would have skewered Obama if he had a daughter in the same situation, and they would have done it in a disgraceful, race-baiting sort of way.Being nice to people like isn't going to magically turn them into rational human beings; it's just going to make elected progressives think it's OK to "compromise" on progressive values. (Because if progressives aren't ANGRY AND LOUD enough, then politicians won't respond to their issues.)
BRISTOL: Fucking hell, woman,I need that Oxy right now! I'm about to birth my second, uh, first child! Arrrgh, it's starting!
SHERRY: Doggone it, I am just so darn sorry.
BRISTOL: You betcha. Mom is going to be so pissed at you, she's gonna go and give away your seat on the aerial-wolf-shooting-plane!
[enter SARAH]
SARAH: [*wink* at audience] Pissed at Sherry for what? [*wink*]
BRISTOL: The Johnston Oxy lab got busted.
SARAH: [aside] Sometimes, I really just miss Track. His drugs things were simpler. [to the others] I gots me an idearrr! [*winks* then exits stage left]
[Bristol's water breaks. Curtain closes]
[Curtain opens, showing a screen with Google News on it. Plastered all over the screen is this:]
PALIN: BLAGO SOLD SHERRY THE OXY LAB; SAID IT WAS 'FUCKING GOLDEN'
"The Republicans were sort of right, these people are representative of America's small towns, and that is why as a whole we decided to elect the smart, educated, well-off urbanite aspirational black couple from Chicago instead of the angry Vietnam veteran and the scary PTA moron-bitch with the fucked-up family."
so people (espeicaly Gwaker) keep complaining about how they are sick of Palin and they want her to go away. Yet you keep finding ways to bring her back into the news.
@taftsearlobe33: Er, a, her family and family-by-impregnantion keeps schlepping themselves back into the news, much to our profound disgust and chortling delight!
@BookishLookish: No, they are WAAAAAY farther south than that (I'm from -- as in "never again!" -- West Virginia) and this is worse than even my 70-year-old uncle who was busted a couple years ago for selling Oxycontin. We were so proud ....
But no, I'd say the far-back-woods of Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi. Nowhere as citified as Atlanta or Mobile, though.
@SaraRueful: You know, that woman is a patriot and a feminist and she has come about as far as the rest of America with accepting blacks and not accepting Arabs so I think you guys should cut her some slack.
But, seriously? That backwoods biatch knows more about some/any aspect of something/anything to do with the election than a lot of people I talk to. I at least give her credit for knowing the name of the freakin' candidate. And if she really did vote, then props to her. I disagree with her opinion but, eh, I've heard it a LOT.
@SaraRueful: That accent is not Deep South. It is mid-South and I am still putting my money on Tennessee. That's a holler twang if I ever heard one, and this little South-travelin' Jewess has heard a lot of 'em! But if I'm wrong, drinks are on me, sis.
coming from a small town the size of wasilla in an almost equally backwater state, i remember my experience being people like sarah palin and, i assume, sherry johnston are known as frauds, or at least abject, locally. it's remarkable how normal folks are. some might want to replace 'normal' with 'boring', but those same people get busted for oxycontin and run for vice president. and those people are known (and rejected in their own way) for having aspirations fulfilled either through felonious activities or gubernatorial campaigns. at the end of the day, small towns hate people who try to discard small towns, and those are the scary folks.
@harvey_wallpaper: yuck. i just reread this and realized my point was muddled to non-existent.
i mean to say not everyone in small towns is a wreck. amazingly, they live by the lame tenets they espouse. and, i imagine, many disliked the palins/johnstons because small towns can smell weakness better than most.
and this will be the last time i ever try to talk about small towns because, for some reason, i can't get a damn point out about them.
@harvey_wallpaper: I understand what you're saying, being from a small town myself. FROM being the operative word. As in, "It's a great place to be from (but a terrible place to live)."
@Lizawithazee: being "from" -- again, past tense -- Kampala, Uganda, which is probably one of the smallest of the small, I hear what you are saying and don't mean to paint everyone with that "hillbilly" whitewash brush. Just the Hillbilly Heroine.
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Yep, it sucks to be them, and if Grandpa McCain and Caribou Barbie had been elected, it would have sucked a whole lot more to be the rest of us. Sympathy's in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.
12/21/08
"My experience with small southern towns is that they love you as long as they think you're just like them. As soon as they figure out you're not--your skin's the wrong color, that guy you're with isn't your brother, you've got short hair (if you're a woman) or long hair (if you're a man), you look like you might be prone to abortions--then the full panoply of hatred comes boiling up."
Sounds like the intolerant attitude held by 90 percent of the commenters on this site. by the way, can you add a few more cliches and superficialities to your next comment?
12/21/08
So...what you quoted is, in my experience in the deep south, absolutely true. If you think about it (give a try, sparky), cliches are based on truth.
And tolerance is a two-way street, and outside of college towns, there's very little of it in small-town America if you deviate even slightly from their norms. Maybe it's simply true of humanity in general, and there's just a bigger mix in larger, more cosmopolitan areas. But life in small-town America was a constant assault on my sensibilities, and i got out as quickly as i could.
So yep, why should the commentariate in this snark sanctuary do anything other than mock and give thanks to a loving God, who they probably don't believe in, that they don't live in Wassilla or any of the other decaying shitholes that besmirch the maps of the republic?
Sarah Palin lives is a glass house, and as we saw during the election, she, or the handlers pulling on her strings, had no problems throwing rocks (cliche alert, and it's a twofer!) at those of us in what i presume they'd call the fake America.
12/21/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
Do any of us really know whether Levi's being "forced" to marry Bristol? I treat this the way I treat all accusations re: the Clintons' marriage. It's none of our business, and don't make judgements as you're not in the relationship. Remember: Being snotty and rude only gives conservatives ammo. Kill them with kindness.
Obama won. Can't we just move on from all of the McCain and Palin hating? It got boring back in October.
12/20/08
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SHERRY: Doggone it, I am just so darn sorry.
BRISTOL: You betcha. Mom is going to be so pissed at you, she's gonna go and give away your seat on the aerial-wolf-shooting-plane!
[enter SARAH]
SARAH: [*wink* at audience] Pissed at Sherry for what? [*wink*]
BRISTOL: The Johnston Oxy lab got busted.
SARAH: [aside] Sometimes, I really just miss Track. His drugs things were simpler. [to the others] I gots me an idearrr! [*winks* then exits stage left]
[Bristol's water breaks. Curtain closes]
[Curtain opens, showing a screen with Google News on it. Plastered all over the screen is this:]
PALIN: BLAGO SOLD SHERRY THE OXY LAB; SAID IT WAS 'FUCKING GOLDEN'
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
Pure gold.
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But no, I'd say the far-back-woods of Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi. Nowhere as citified as Atlanta or Mobile, though.
12/20/08
But, seriously? That backwoods biatch knows more about some/any aspect of something/anything to do with the election than a lot of people I talk to. I at least give her credit for knowing the name of the freakin' candidate. And if she really did vote, then props to her. I disagree with her opinion but, eh, I've heard it a LOT.
12/20/08
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i mean to say not everyone in small towns is a wreck. amazingly, they live by the lame tenets they espouse. and, i imagine, many disliked the palins/johnstons because small towns can smell weakness better than most.
and this will be the last time i ever try to talk about small towns because, for some reason, i can't get a damn point out about them.
12/20/08
12/20/08