As I’ve said, I live across the street from where the Chelsea bombing occurred. But I wasn’t there when it happened. I came home with my family Sunday evening. Since subways were still not stopping at the station’s closest to the bomb area we walked ten blocks. Returning to our neighborhood and approaching the guarded perimeter I felt a deep-seated pride in the community I live in, pride as a New Yorker. Immediately outside the sealed off perimeter people were going about their business as if nothing had happened. There was no climate of fear, no sense of a community on lock down. People were walking the streets, going to restaurants and bars.
New Yorkers are the best. Compare/contrast that to the weenies in the Gun Nation video, or this guy who can’t go to a Wal-Mart without an AR-15. Weenies, the lot of them.
It’s good to see a few people out there who still understand what courage is. The nature of courage was a big theme in old Westerns. We don’t make them or even watch them very much any more, and we seem to have forgotten some of their real lessons.
I love it. Both bombs undone by ‘scavengers’ who either disabled the device or called police. The lack of sophistication of the bomber and devices does underscore that the threat is nothing like what happened 15 years ago. The demands that we abandon the Bill of Rights and establish a totalitarian state to keep us all ‘safe’ is a ploy to establish martial law which the leaders want for reasons we can speculate about. But there’s no justification.
On the larger observation that New Yorkers are awesome – agreed. Even the scavengers.
Well, them New Yawkers wouldn’t be so aloof to danger if they were ever confronted with a leprosy carrying armadillo. Believe me!
Having grown-up in NYC until we moved to the Mid-Hudson Valley when I was 11, and then moving back when I finished college, I know how tough and resilient NYers are.
And t-RUMP ain’t any sort of example of that!
He a gutless, thin-skinned, loud-mouthed coward.
When it was Irish terrorists people in NYC were worried about from the 60’s to the 90’s, gutless punks like Peter King and t-RUMP said nothing.
But now that it’s Muslims, these Chicken Little-like chickenshits are soiling themselves several times a day!
A terrorist is a terrorist, no matter what gender, color, or religion they are!
And terrorism isn’t any reason to give up frredoms and liberties!
It’s time to keep them, to show how unafraid we are. THAT will piss-off terrorist’s more than obseqiously giving up the rights that generations of Americans fought, got wounded, and died for.
And to say otherwise, shows not only how cowardly you are, but how fundamentaly un-American you are!!!
Oh, and for all of you gun-carrying losers in SiblingDiddle, “fly-over country,” the terrorists have no interest in you.
They already can see and know how cowardly you are.
You’ve already given up to them. They ‘broke’ you on 9/11, if not before.
No.
It’s not until they can ‘break’ NYers, and other tough Americans, that they can imagine happening.
The Nazi’s couldn’t break Londoners and other people in England, no matter how many bombs or V1’s and V2’s they dropped!
Maybe some of you chickenshits could learn a thing or two from them. And NYers. Oh, but I forgot – most of you are incapable of learning. You’re too busy strutting around and preening with your steel p*nis substitutes, showing the other shoppers at Walmart or eating lunch at a fast-food joint how TOUGH and patriotic you are.
You ain’t.
In your own way, you terrorize the poor people around you.
Tough?
Patriotic?
It is to laugh at!!!.
In my experience city life seems to confuse and frighten the good ole boy wingnut. Back in Georgia, I remember telling one that I was going on my first trip to Disney World. He told me that Orlando was a den of iniquity. When I asked him about New Orleans his expression became most serious. Colored gangstas, swearing in public, the homeless… Ya’ll know fer sure that the antichrist will be a city boy.
He told me that Orlando was a den of iniquity.
He was right! Don’t look back when leaving Orlando because you might be turned into a pillar of salt.
“Don’t look back when leaving Orlando because you might be turned into a pillar of salt.”
Yeah, that happened to me once. It’s a nuisance.
It was worse than a nuisance for me when I turned into a pillar of salt.
It happened to me near a lime orchard, across the road from a tequila distllery!
I did lose quite a bit of weight when I turned back into human form, though!
Interesting that the gun nuts say its the changing of gun laws by liberals that allows “criminals” to get and keep guns.
Yet in GA, as in other states, laws have been passed, with the support of these same nuts, that allow for the purchase and possession of guns without permits or background checks. How the hell are you going to prevent “criminals” from getting guns, if you are against any kind of checks or permits??
Bottom line with these people, its not about “freedom,” any idealistic upholding of the 2nd amendment, its about fear. And power.
With long term unemployment, real men become heroes driving around Walmart in electric carts with their AR-15s waiting for that special moment to save the day. Jack Vale is notorious for pranking Walmart scooter guys with his pooter. Somebody better warn him.
Josh Marshall has a point, as usual. The people of NYC and his neighborhood have a right to be proud. I wish their way of handling this sort of adversity had been the model for our whole nation, it denies the terrorists the prize of our fear.
We all watched those old TV Westerns mentioned above. When I got a little older and the westerns got a little better (Gunsmoke!) The theme that courage wasn’t the lack of fear, but it was the ability to overcome fear. I don’t pretend to understand the AR-15 wielding Walmartyrs. But, as kids we have a natural gift for turning the lack of sensory information and some free floating anxieties into the monster under a bed, and we don’t completely lose the skill as adults. There is a comfort in binding fears and insecurities into a concrete bundle. It’s provides definition and scale. It gives a form to things that are amorphous. The fears become something you can defend yourself against, something that you can shoot. Better yet, if you can shoot it, you’re rid of it. You can imagine yourself facing it and defeating it. The cost of this advantage is that you never really get to know the real nature of your fear, you’ve made it into something else; you’ve externalized it. So you miss one of the primary sources of fear, which is our misapprehension of the world and our tendency to give in to our prejudice and ignorance
By chance I was reading an article that contained a quotation from Plotinus that bears on the people of Josh Marshall’s neighborhood. “The person who acts courageously, is not conscious of being courageous.”
“We have met the monster under the bed, and he is us.”
My hat’s off to Elizabeth Warren.
This is off topic, but it does have a relationship to courage, moral courage that is. Check out this video and watch the dressing down she gives Stumpf. No doubt she’s done her homework.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/20/494738797/you-should-resign-watch-sen-elizabeth-warren-grill-wells-fargo-ceo-john-stumpf
I’m still drinking coffee, so I’ll have to follow Swami’s link later. I heard part of this on NPR. Maybe there is some selection going on in that I hear what is selected as a soundbite or what goes viral on the net. (Both terms seem to trivialize the intellectual presence and honesty of Elizabeth Warren.) But, I can’t recall ever hearing her speak without being moved to a deep admiration. What a mind she has.
Of course, I hope the media will fill us in on the color and fit of her “pantsuit.” Enquiring minds want to know after all.
Elizabeth Warren is AWESOME!!
If you’ve ever visited a Walmart down in my part of Florida the idea of bringing along an AR15 isn’t such a crazy idea. There’s some weird people who shop at my local Walmart ( myself included). It’s kinda like stepping into the Twilight Zone from the moment when you first encounter the Walmart greeter till you finally make your exit. Of course it could be a distorted perception of danger on my part, but whenever I go to the local Walmart I have sense of being immersed in a sea of mental instability. I’ve never experienced that feeling in all my travels to many geographical locations.
Trump never stands up for the AR15 carrying Walmarters when it comes to his rallies in open carry states. Why is that, I wonder?
The Wall Mart shoppers will lull you into a false sense of security. Not all fashion statements are truly acceptable at the Wall Mart. It is right to be fearful, lest you violate strict social norms. Some internet sites will guide you as to the extremes and limits of Wall Mart fashion. I will not provide links, as you are on your own on this one. With a little work and planning you too can dress appropriately for the shopping experience and feel comfortable and like you belong there too. Take some time looking at other’s fashion statements. They like the attention to all the time and work they have put in. Whatever you do avoid looking in their carts. This will reveal too much information, and may induce a panic attack.
I found a longer version of the Elizabeth Warren grilling Stumpf on youtube. She is amazing. As the old saying goes, “I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side.” She’s analyzes a situation in detail, picks out the issues and pursues them with a laser focus. On top of that, she demands answers.
Re: Walmart:
My late mother lived with us for a few years. She loved Walmart because she was thrifty to the core. So I’d take her there for a treat and to pick up her medications. The thing that bothers me most about Walmart is the sense of tension I get from the “associates.” They seem to be under constant stress. On a few occasions, I’ve heard them break down in tears or exhibit some similar emotional distress. Basically, the place gives me the creeps because it seems that the employees are having their lives sucked away and wrung out for excessive profit. (In fairness, I have friends who have worked there and loved it. One was is quadriplegic, and was a greeter. He hasn’t found another career opportunity, and really misses it.)
The workers all treated my mother so well that when she died, I went to the store to thank them and tell them how much their kindness had meant to my mother. When you’re stuck in a thankless job, a little bit of appreciation makes the day go easier. I hope it did.
The clientele is pretty varied, but, they do give the impression that obesity and poor dentition are the sine qua non of those with deep southern roots. I think they’re spending their food and tooth money some spiffy tattoos. “Man does not live by bread alone,” after all.
Do not miss the Gail Collin piece on the “Who can be the stupidest state on guns” contest. in the NYT today. Here is a tease: “Of course, a woman is less likely to be shot by an intruder than by a member of her family. And really, Missouri, do you want to have everybody in St. Louis carrying a concealed weapon? Let’s talk.”