Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 5:17:47 PM

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A Purim song

Haman, oh leave me alone
Haman. oh Esther get on the throne
Haman, you want to flatten my face
This new Jewish queen just put the king in his place

Haman, my kind are threatened
Haman, you throw us down the drain
Haman, you're a total blam-blam
You said you had to squeeze us but then...

Jukebox

buzzsawmonkey 3/10/2020 5:17:58 PM

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buzzsawmonkey 3/10/2020 5:22:21 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 1:

Megillah Maniacs
—with apologies to the "Animaniacs” theme ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Q4tPTLUVk )

We are Megillah maniacs

We defend against attacks

Take your groggers off the racks

Enjoy their raucous clacks

Megillah maniacs

Hear of the Jews of Shushan

And the Persian Empire too

By royal decree, they resist what Haman wants to do

Each year we read their story, and twice must hear it through

And we defame

Old Haman’s name

With our catcalls and boos

Megillah maniacs

We are costumed in odd scraps

Who cares if in taste we lapse?

Pour yourself another schnapps
Megillah maniacs

Meet the King, Achashverosh

Who is a boozy fool

Haman, who’s born of Amalek

And who schemes plots to rule

Esther is the heroic queen

Mordechai keeps his cool

And when the evil

Plan is foiled

The Jews enjoy renewal

Megillah maniacs

We pay half-shekel Temple tax

We hand out gift food packs

To friends, and whoever lacks

We are Megillah

Having quite a thrill-ah

Feasting to our fill-ah

Megillah maniacs

Those are the facts!

doppelganglander 3/10/2020 5:22:29 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 2:

Or pretending to study while actually goofing around on Twitter.

lucius septimius 3/10/2020 6:14:11 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 2:

Me and the boys just finished watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

buzzsawmonkey 3/10/2020 6:47:54 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 5:

Interesting movie.  John Hughes' films signaled the Catholic destruction of formerly-Jewish Hollywood.  

Jewish Hollywood---the classic Jewish Hollywood---would never have created films in which children were left on their own, which is something that characterizes most of Hughes' films.  In the John Hughes world, parents are absent, or feckless, or clueless, or a combination of all of them.  Nobody in a John Hughes film would ever think of relying on their parent(s) for anything.  Does this reflect the Hughes ideal, or merely the reality of the times?  I don't know---but when I look at a Hughes film, and laugh---as I do, occasionally---I feel dirty for doing so, because the characters are so uniformly vile, including the supposed heroes.

buzzsawmonkey 3/10/2020 7:13:09 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 5:

I'm sorry, by the way, if I come off in the above message as prejudiced or intemperate---not my intention.  In my defense, I've been poking Jew-haters with sticks over on PJM off and on all day, and the attitude may have carried over.

To clarify, the old original "Jewish Hollywood" was dying out by the time Hughes came along---but that Hollywood, whether it was doing quasi-religious films like those with Bing Crosby or Cary Grant as a priest/minister, or just-plain secular films, believed in, and gave its audience, something which set forth a classic family structure.  If something different was shown, it was shown to be different, and probably not such a good idea.

The Hughes films take absent parents and feral children as a given.  The family structure is represented as fundamentally a joke, and children are largely on their own and raising themselves.  True in "Ferris Bueller," "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink," the "Home Alone" films, and, arguably, the "Vacation/Christmas" films starring Chevy Chase.  The adults are the clowns and the butts---not in charge, not even nominally competent, mostly coming in to rage cluelessly after whatever it is has been resolved.  And these films dominated Hollywood for, what?  A decade?  Two?

I'll grant you that the parent-in-charge films of earlier eras were a fantasy, but so are the Hughes films.  In the (loosely quoted) words of George Orwell, "That is also a lie, but all things considered the first lie is less pernicious than the other."  The Hughes oeuvre has its amusing moments, but it is at heart socially corrosive, whether reflective of the then-mores or as a leader towards them. 

If you can change my mind, I'd love to hear it.

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:19:17 PM

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On another theatric note, I was thinking about how one of the maiden aunts I mentioned a few days ago really wanted to go to Hawaii. Finally, she went. (Late 60's or early 70's)

She died there. Mess bringing her body back, actually.

I figure if I ever take the Cunard liner voyage I used to dream of, there would be an iceberg.

And now, I realize, not any iceberg. It would be full of frozen sharks which form a tornado that throws them into the lifeboats, eating all the passengers to cinematic screams and gore..

Sharknado III - Titanic Cruise

I wonder if I can sell that idea?

Syrah 3/10/2020 7:19:33 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:20:57 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 8:

If I lost my sense of humor, I'd go fucking nuts. And nuts are hard and painful to .....

Syrah 3/10/2020 7:21:19 PM

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How much money I should invest in Russian oil companies?

everything is looking really cheap now. 

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:22:40 PM

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In #9 Syrah said: Are we all dead yet?

I'm not dead yet

Video

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:23:14 PM

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In #11 Syrah said: 11 How much money I should invest in Russian oil companies?

Only as much as you are willing to let Putin take.

Syrah 3/10/2020 7:34:39 PM

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For what it is worth, I am becoming increasingly less concerned about the Wuhan Virus.

The flu season ends in May because the warm weather shuts it down. While the Wuhan Virus is not the flu, it is enough like it to be fairly certain that it will follow the flu pattern of seemingly disappearing in the summer months. 

The fall may be weird, but then again, maybe not.

The US is not China, we don’t really have any cities that are as densely packed as Wuhan. Americans are by habitual inclination, clean freaks. 

Italy and Iran are a bit of a worry. 

South Korea looks like they have a handle on this thing. 

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:37:35 PM

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Reply to Syrah in 14:

Oh, but Mass. Governor Baker (RINO, makes most RINOS look Republican) 
has declared a state of emergency because of drumroll....

92 cases

Of which 70 something came from one conference.

Death rate seems to be around 0.7%

Never let a good crisis go to waste, they say.

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:38:29 PM

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Syrah 3/10/2020 7:42:00 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 15:

There is a lot of money released when a state of emergency is declared.

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:45:13 PM

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Or I could go full paranoia mode and say maybe the government knows this really is a nasty bioweapon, and has to be contained.

The rational part of me says our government isn't this competent. Nor is China capable of making such a bioweapon. Yet.

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:46:22 PM

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In #17 Syrah said: There is a lot of money released when a state of emergency is declared.

True, and the government's hand is so deep in my wallet, I don't notice a few more fingers.

Syrah 3/10/2020 7:52:54 PM

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Biden will be the Dem nominee, if he can make it to the convention without stroking out or going apeshit on some poor citizen. 

The Bernie bros are a bit upset. They got beat by a zombie. 

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 7:56:35 PM

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Reply to Syrah in 20:

The difference between Republicans and Democrats:

Republicans had the Gipper

Democrats have the Gaffer

I think at the convention, they'll let out that Biden has dementia (But then, all Democrats are demented)

And nominate someone else. Buzz thinks Michelle Obama; news suggests Hillary (who would lose worse than before)

Syrah 3/10/2020 7:57:26 PM

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A sign in the window of a liquor store. 

“Free Roll of Toilet Paper with Every Case of Corona”

Syrah 3/10/2020 8:00:37 PM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 21:

Michelle would be a winner.

Every other Democrat only gets votes that are against Trump.

i don’t think that “votes against” provide enough energy to win an election.  

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 8:02:35 PM

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By today's standards, JFK would be a conservative Republican

The Dems have gone from the party of Camelot to the party of Camelshit

Jukebox

doppelganglander 3/10/2020 8:06:22 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 7:

One could view the classic WASP family films of Jewish Hollywood as an idealization created by outsiders whose immigrant family experience was often the complete opposite. Hughes' films are an inside, warts-and-all look at the WASPiest WASPs who ever WASPed. (That includes Catholics of the same SES.) The blue-collar characters, notably Andie in Pretty in Pink and Bender in The Breakfast Club, come from struggling, single-parent families, but their interaction with their wealthier peers from two-parent homes also deal with misunderstanding, isolation, and neglect. Compare and contrast Molly Ringwald's Andie with her Claire in The Breakfast Club. They present different faces to the world, but both are insecure and desperately concerned with appearances. Then there's her character Samantha in Sixteen Candles, who is so insignificant to her family that they have completely forgotten her birthday. Most of Hughes' characters are affected one way or another by the widespread selfishness, rootlessness, and dislocation of the '70s and '80s. As you say, they are left to handle life on their own - literally in the case of Kevin in Home Alone - with varying degrees of success. (And how about Baby's Day Out? A kidnapped toddler damn near gets himself killed repeatedly while the idiot adults look for him. But it all turns out fine in the end!)

It's late, so I'm not even going to get into Hughes' characters as metaphorical Orphaned Heroes.

Kosh's Shadow 3/10/2020 8:07:54 PM

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Reply to doppelganglander in 25:

I can't follow this as I never watched any of these movies

doppelganglander 3/10/2020 8:10:34 PM

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In #25 doppelganglander said: their interaction with their wealthier peers from two-parent homes also deal with misunderstanding, isolation, and neglect

their interactions with their wealthier peers from two-parent homes reveal they also deal etc.