The Retroactive Table of Contents : February 10 – February 17

Tod Kelly

Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is  a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.

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29 Responses

  1. E.D.Kain says:

    This is a real service and value added to the site, Tod. Thanks!Report

  2. Mary says:

    🙂
    Thanks for all your hard work.Report

  3. Murali says:

    Is there a roster for this? i.e. how do we know who is going to do this next week?Report

  4. Wardsmith says:

    Tod it is almost more fun to read your synopses than the originals!Report

  5. MFarmer says:

    “This is a real service and value added to the site, Tod. Thanks!”

    Yes, especially when providing the service he denigrates and insults an entire region without justification. If what he got out of the two posts he referenced in the beginning is that the south is batshit crazy, then I’d say the service he rendered is not so great.Report

  6. Rtod says:

    Chill, Mike. Nothing in these recaps is meant to be taken that seriously.

    Similarly, FWIW, Eurpoe is not about to disappear and David is not having a midlife crisis.

    (I do, however, mean to skip Atlas Shrugged II.)Report

    • MFarmer in reply to Rtod says:

      Oh, I see, then you are batshit crazy and homophobic. No problem.Report

        • MFarmer in reply to Rtod says:

          “???” — Oh, I was just recapping — so, you and your friends are also  misogynists? Thanks alot, LoOG!Report

          • Tod Kelly in reply to MFarmer says:

            I obviously cut, which was not my intention. My bad.

            Apologies.Report

            • MFarmer in reply to Tod Kelly says:

              LOL, it’s not personal. You can’t get off that easy. My little feeling weren’t hurt, so your apology is not accepted and is deemed a dodge to avoid admitting you are a racist.Report

              • MFarmer in reply to MFarmer says:

                That’s a re-cap, by the way, so don’t take it too seriously.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to MFarmer says:

                Aaaaaaand now we’re done.

                Have a great weekend, Mike.Report

              • MFarmer in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                Aaaaaaa, Tod, what did it? The R word. Now you can defend you prejudice because I used the R word? You’re reaction is pathetic. This is so typical of Leftist weaseling. You can dish out the “humor” but you can’t take it.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to MFarmer says:

                I’m sorry, was it humor?  If so, than I’ll stick around.  I mistook it for hostility.Report

              • MFarmer in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                hostility? No, look, let me explain. A handful of legislators in VA and NC do something stupid, so you call the entire south batshit crazy, then justify it because I can’t take recaps seriously, so I recap and call you homophobic, misogynist and racist, for no good reason, like you have no good reason to call the entire south batshit crazy, but you can’t take it seriously, because, like you, I was recapping.

                See? Now that’s some funny shit in my book, but when you’re on the receiving end, it can seem uncalled for. If I really thought that you thought that I think you are a racist, homophobe and misogynist, I would bend over backwards apologizing with no conditions. I’d say I’m wrong and there’s no excuse for calling people such names when there’s no good reason. But the reason for my namecalling was to teach a lesson about such prejudice and stupid conclusions. I did it with humor. I’m not mad. I just thought it was a stupid, prejudiced thing to write, and you should just admit it and learn from it, unless you really believe the south is batshit crazy. In that case, I respect your belief, but disagree wholeheartedly. The south is a diverse region which is coming on strong, and, in about 25 years, the South will be the major US region for economic growth along with propagation of art and social change.Report

              • MFarmer in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                Also, to help with the learning process, there’s a tendency among partisans (it’s common to practically all groupists)  to find anyway possible to win an argument and not show weakness, therefore, when they are losing an argument or say something that can’t be defended, they look for a way out, like taking the “racist” comment out of context to display as a hot word that will obscure the original indefensible, prejudiced comment, and therefore give you a way out without having to admit you are wrong, with no qualifications, just wrong — not an apology about hurting my feelings (making me look emotional, over-sensitive and a little unreasonable), but wrong about the prejudiced statement against smart, educated, good and decent people in the South. I would understand it as a joke during the recap if it wasn’t such a common belief among the Left outside of the South. For you to even associate the two cases with the intelligence level or rational capacities of those in the South show that you’re prejudiced. This is something you can re-assess and perhaps learn from, if you stop justifying it and quit attempting to deflect criticism.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Tod Kelly says:

                Dude, I already agreed it was a “my bad” on my part.  But I’ll say it again.

                No need to have gone there, shouldn’t have gone there, will try to learn from it.Report

  7. Robert Cheeks says:

    Mike, I can darn near see ol’ Morgan and his cavalry riding down the Hanoverton Road…look away Dixieland!!!!!!Report

    • MFarmer in reply to Robert Cheeks says:

      Robert,

      It’s more like a defense of all people from certain parts of the country from prejudice and hate-speech propagated by homophobes, misogynists and climate change deniers. It’s an Obama-like focus on fairness.Report

      • Patrick Cahalan in reply to MFarmer says:

        I would have you pegged as someone who would regard both of those bits of news as hugely statist, overreaching, and crazy.Report

        • Patrick,

          I do, but can you extrapolate from that that the south is batshit crazy? Holy crap, batman, have you all gone mad on Penguin venom?Report

          • Patrick Cahalan in reply to MFarmer says:

            If you think the legislation (at least in the VA case) is crazy, and it’s passing with majority support in the legislature (who presumably represent something regarding the general public) and it’s being signed by the governor, then it seems not entirely unreasonable to say that a majority of Virginians support something that is crazy.

            Yes, I realize that “Virginia” != “all of the south”.  On the other hand, I don’t think Tod was actually expressing an ironclad belief that all of the south is as crazy as Virginia.

            If anything, I would expect you to say something along the lines of, “this is all because the Statists in both parties have convinced normal Americans that Statism is the new normal”, or something.

            Not, “Tod, you’re a racist!”

            (P.S. -> if ’twere he to be bigoted against the south, that doesn’t make him a “racist”, so if you’re saying “overgeneralization ought to be called out!” you’re making your point in an odd way.)Report

            • Patrick, first get a sense of humor, then realize that the actual number of people who actually voted for the representatives involved is minimal, then realize that representatives vote on shit all the time that the majority doesn’t support, then get a grip — what the hell are you trying to justify? That it’s alright to call the south, which is a bigass, diverse area in the US, batshit crazy because a handful of legislators in a statist regime do something stupid?Report

              • Patrick Cahalan in reply to MFarmer says:

                first get a sense of humor

                (laffin) Dude, what makes you think I’m not laughing at this?

                then realize that representatives vote on shit all the time that the majority doesn’t support

                Sure.

                How much support does this law have?  According to this, a majority.  Do you agree with this Planned Parenthood representative that this poll is not sufficient?  I’m not going to claim outright that a majority of Virginians support this law, but there is at least evidence to support that position and nothing (I’ve found so far, anyway) to support a conclusion to the contrary.  More here.

                States that have these laws with a mandatory requirement:

                Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas.

                States with non-mandatory ultrasound laws?

                Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia.

                I don’t see Tennessee or Kentucky on either list, not sure if you’d call them “Southern” or not.  Admittedly, there are non-Southern states also on the list.  The northeast, northwest, and southwest are notably underrepresented.

                Not that those states don’t do goofy stuff, either.Report

              • States that have these laws with a mandatory requirement:

                Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas.

                Am I to understand that all of these states have the same transvaginal ultrasound requirement as Virginia? Any idea why it’s Virginia taking this step that got all the publicity?Report

              • Kimmi in reply to Will Truman says:

                1) virginia’s near the beltway. maybe some people are looking at their daughters.

                2) Virginia is trending out of the south, demographically speaking. This spells Culture War in a big way… (and Virginia’s legislature is swung right as of the moment. may swing back this year).

                It says more to me who isn’t on these lists, than who is. Also, that SD has non-mandatory…

                The NW not being on here is a STRONG indication that liberals care more about this issue than conservatives.Report

              • Tod Kelly in reply to Will Truman says:

                Assuming Pat’s data is correct (and I have no reason to think that it isn’t), there may not be any reason other than “slow news day” and/or “the time was right for this to catch fire.”Report