Open Thread for Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Didn't I top another post recently with pretty much this same image? No matter. It's still money...

Didn’t I top another post recently with pretty much this same image? No matter. It’s still money…

Another slow day. Some possible stuff to talk about:

  1. ‘Vegas, baby, Vegas!’ — I’m kinda dragging at the moment, and I’ve got a meeting to go to before I head home, but if I can possibly keep my eyes open that long, I’ll be live-Tweeting the debate, as per usual. So join me, just once more. Soon, very soon, it will all be over…
  2. Want to write in Mickey Mouse for president? In SC, you can’t — Good. Because every vote for Mickey Mouse is actually a vote for Trump. The same goes for Goofy. Actually, especially for Goofy…
  3. The greatest role of Bill Murray’s life has been playing Bill Murray — I actually enjoyed this piece more than anything else I’ve read today. So I’m sharing it. And this counts as local, since he lives in Charleston — although I don’t think the piece mentioned that. Be sure and read the companion piece, written shortly after this one posted: I tried reaching Murray for weeks. He finally called back today.
  4. WikiLeaks founder Assange was Ecuador’s guest of honor. Then he wore out his welcome. — Yeah, I know — Assange again. Except this piece isn’t about Assange as much as it’s about Ecuador, and that interests me, since I lived there longer than anywhere else growing up. Short version — Ecuador (all South America, in fact) is shifting politically, and poking Uncle Sam in the eye isn’t as much of a winning formula as it may have been before.
  5. Times Names A.G. Sulzberger as Its Deputy Publisher — Yeah, I know — inside-baseball newspaper stuff. Doesn’t really interest me, either. I’m only sharing it because the picture the NYT ran with this cracked me up — a major newspaper (the Gray Lady, no less!) executive being presented to the world with a three-day beard growth and an open-necked shirt with no tie. Message: We’re young; we’re hip; we’re happ’nin’; we’re now. We know all about the Interwebs. If this were the ’60s, I suppose they’d have pictured him holding a Pepsi. Strikes me as desperate.
Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, 36 -- he's hip, he's happening, he's now...

Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, 36 — he’s hip, he’s happening, he’s now…

27 thoughts on “Open Thread for Wednesday, October 19, 2016

  1. Doug Ross

    Nice to see a kid like Sulzberger get a break, right? Sort of like a real estate developer giving his son a some seed money. Do you think the Times will call sonny boy just a lucky loser?

  2. Bryan Caskey

    I’m always struck by how young Vince Vaughn is in that movie.

    Three years before, (1993) he was in Rudy. Do you remember which role he played in Rudy without looking it up?

      1. Bryan Caskey

        Correct! Vaughn plays #44 (O’Hara). Here’s the scene you’re thinking of:

        However, O’Hara comes around. At the very end of the movie, he’s the QB who disregards the coach’s play call (and calls his own play) because he knows the Irish need to score a touchdown so Rudy can get on the field with the defense.

        1. Bryan Caskey

          Brad, you must have never seen this movie. If you did, it would be very difficult for you to have such a dislike for football – especially college football.

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Not only how young, but how skinny he was. Jon Favreau, too.

      No, I’ve never seen “Rudy” all the way through. I think I’ve seen the ending.

      I have trouble getting into a character who cares about football, much less one who cares THAT MUCH. Although, of course, if you’re going to make football your religion, it should be at a Catholic school. 🙂

      See here’s the thing: It’s not that I hate football so much per se. I might even occasionally watch it, for seconds on end, before changing the channel looking for something more interesting. What bugs me is people caring SO MUCH about it. People with their priorities so far out of whack don’t deserve such a fine automobile, etc.

      I’m trying to think of a football movie that I like the way people revere “Rudy.” Can’t think of one. My fave sports movies are “Hoosiers” and “The Natural.” Followed perhaps by “Major League” and “The Sandlot.” I’m also fond of “Happy Gilmore” and “Tin Cup.”

      1. Brad Warthen Post author

        Wait, wait, wait! I just looked back at my “Top Five Sports Movies” as posted in 2010, and I forgot some really important ones: “Rocky” and “Vision Quest” (as a HS wrestler myself, and as often as I refer to it here, how could I have forgotten that? Forgive me, Kuch!)

        Then there’s “Chariots of Fire” and “Breaking Away” for the sake of sports diversity. I also praised “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” and noted how the original (about boxing) was so much better than the remake, “Heaven Can Wait” (about football — see the pattern?)…

      2. Claus

        I find it interesting that you are pro-Catholic everything even though you weren’t raised Catholic.

        If you like Hoosiers, you’d like Rudy. Same concept but football instead of basketball.

      3. Bryan Caskey

        I recommend you give Rudy a watch with an open mind. It’s nominally about a boy’s desire to play football at Notre Dame, yes. But its larger theme is determination to see your dreams succeed in the face of adversity and the entire world telling you to give up such a far-fetched dream.

        If, after watching the movie from the beginning, you aren’t even slightly moved when Rudy finally gets his acceptance to Notre Dame, you’re a cold fish. I always notice that there is a lot of dust in the room at that point, myself.

        1. Claus

          And then reality sets in when you look up Daniel Ruettiger, a motivational speaker who is nothing more than a pompous, arrogant a-hole. It seems all the movie did was make his head bigger.

    2. Douglas Ross

      Vince Vaughn – Libertarian.

      ““Trusting the federal government to know what we need and to run things well feels like a bad idea. You see that in the foreign policy of force, where the United States decides to go into another country to make things turn out a certain way. It doesn’t work. It causes more problems. … I don’t agree with a foreign policy that says you can send troops places without declaring a war and without having a plan to win the war. I would think you would look at Vietnam and suggest it wasn’t the best-laid plan.

      “I feel the same way domestically. … [Adults] should be allowed to decide what’s in their interest, what makes sense for them, unless they commit fraud or physical force or take someone’s property. …

      “I think history has proven without a doubt that the proper role of government is to protect individuals’ rights and liberties. That has always been the most prosperous, freest society for people to live in. And when government gets too involved, society turns into a place that gets very, very ugly. …

      “America today is not capitalistic. The problem is corporatism. The government has too much authority, and it’s dangerous. It stifles productivity and freedom and prosperity and peace. …”

  3. Jeff Mobley

    Mathematically, a vote for Mickey Mouse is not a vote for Trump:

    State of the SC election excluding my vote > Trump + 1 Even Clinton + 1
    Results of the SC election including my vote
    If I vote Trump Trump wins Trump wins Tie
    I vote Clinton Tie Clinton wins Clinton wins
    I vote Mouse Trump wins Tie Clinton wins

    1. Jeff Mobley

      I should have known this table wouldn’t translate into a readable format. My apologies, everyone.

        1. Jeff Mobley

          Haha, yeah, just trying to lay out the outcome in the hypothetical situation in which everyone else’s votes are fixed, and my yet-to-be-cast vote can influence the outcome. There are only three possible such scenarios, all of them ludicrously unlikely, even if the race were close: Trump is up by one before my vote, Clinton is up by one before my vote, or they’re tied.

          The point of the table is just to show that a vote for a third party candidate is not and cannot be equivalent, in terms of it’s possible consequences, to a vote for Trump or a vote for Clinton.

          This is obvious, but for some reason I always want to show people the table when they’re trying to tell me I’m helping Hillary by not voting for Trump (or that I’m helping Trump by not voting for Hillary). To the extent I am helping one of the major party candidates with a third-party vote, it’s only by half as much as I would be helping that candidate if I actually voted for him/her.

          1. Brad Warthen Post author

            I guess I’m just simple on this point: Only one person in world can stop Trump. For him to lose, Hillary Clinton has to win. She needs the vote of every single person who understands how important it is to stop him. Any voter who stays home, or votes for a third-party or independent candidate, throws away his or her only opportunity to DO SOMETHING toward stopping Trump.

            And that’s the point of this election: Anyone who knows what a disaster Trump would be has one obligation as a citizen — to do what he or she can to stop him from winning.

            And only one action can contribute to that end. And how we feel about Hillary Clinton is neither here nor there. She is a qualified person. He is not. Period.

            I don’t like it. But that’s what we’re faced with…

            1. Brad Warthen Post author

              And to put it in Trumpian terms…

              You, as a voter, possess one brick. It is your duty to lay that brick as part of the one wall that can stop him from being president.

              If you take the brick and heave it in some other direction, or lay it down as part of some incomplete wall that is in no position to stop him, you’ve wasted that brick. And your brick was badly needed…

    2. Jeff Mobley

      And yes, I realize we can’t write in for president in South Carolina, which is why I’m glad Evan McMullin was able to get on the Independence ticket in our state.

  4. Marga Surratt

    And that’s the point of this election: Anyone who knows what a disaster Trump would be has one obligation as a citizen — to do what he or she can to stop him from winning.

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