Walnuts, 1936-2018

He was a man of contradictions.

When all was said and done, he said much and did little.

More often that not his maverick displays happened when the side he supposedly opposed already had the votes. He did save the ACA, I’ll give him that. Otherwise, he had an incredible level of credibility. If only he’d had a sense of duty to those who needed his help. Instead, he worked on the care and feeding of legend that was(n’t) John McCain.

@blogenfreude: He only saved the ACA after two prior votes that pushed it to the edge of the cliff. I’ve never been inclined to credit him for putting out a fire he helped start.

@nojo: fair point.

@blogenfreude: yep

@nojo: and yep.

@nojo: @nojo: yep

McCain was smugly and disingenuously on the wrong side of every issue and worked tirelessly on behalf of billionaire GOP donors and his own naked self-interest.
He loved war, and he especially loved victimizing the millions of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam.
He spread truly despicable lies about gay people throughout his career, saying that we would ruin everything from marriage to the military.
He only looks good now due to the steaming pile of themonuclear Republinazi horseshit he leaves behind, yet he still evokes perverse affection from privileged, hetero white people.
I just find that asshole exhausting, and I’m glad he’s dead.

McCain’s political legacy should be largely that of someone who frequently and loudly toyed with doing the right thing and yet decided to do the other thing almost every single time, and who was a willing and active participant in the destruction of one country and helping the racist, authoritarian right rise in his own. What John McCain’s legacy will be, however, is the one crafted by the reporters and peers who loved him, who bought hook, line, and sinker that McCain was a different kind of politician, and not the fraud he actually was.

https://splinternews.com/the-myth-of-john-mccain-1828587230

@¡Andrew!: A lot of Splinter is kneejerk bullshit, but they put some thought into that one, and came prepared.

And speaking of kneejerk bullshit!

I keep drilling on this one, because there’s hagiography, and there’s this deep insistence, in the face of facts, that McCain was a Bipartisan Hero. And not just among the Usual Suspects, but really among Good Liberals like my high school friends.

What we’re witnessing is mass deification.

The McCain they’re lauding is the man they need McCain to be, not the man he was. All was good, nothing bad, or easily dismissed. And why are you so cranky, anyway? At least he wasn’t Trump.

They need John McCain, Bipartisan Hero, because that allows them to look away from America as it is, to pretend that we’re living in some exception to history, and not the inevitable result of actions leading back to the Southern Strategy, if not a century before, or a century before that. They need to believe in a country where we can all just talk to each other because we’re all Americans, not recognizing that if that country ever existed, it was just for white folk.

They need to lie to themselves.

They’re hopeless.

Without a doubt, this is the best / most nuanced obit I’ve read of Walnuts, written by a reporter at the PHX alt-weekly pub.

@SanFranLefty: The man in full. A fair, insightful assessment.

Whoah. Have you seen Nanette?

Unrelated: Someone(s) stole my trash pump last night. I don’t want to live here anymore. There’s something about having things taken from you, from right under your nose when you’re asleep, that’s very fucked up. I don’t feel safe.

I mean, I’m sure I’m safe in the sense that I can’t be pawned for drug money, but still…

@SanFranLefty: Now this is interesting reading. Thank you.

@JNOV: Huge buzz for Nanette. Everyone’s taken with it. Including me.

@JNOV: I’ve watched it a couple times.

How are you & the kiddo & doggies?

Charlie Pierce nails it, in my opinion: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22831597/john-mccain-politics-dead-81/

@SanFranLefty: The kiddo is great and very happy XD

The pups, well…now it’s pup singular, because the Treeing Walker Coon Hound (AKA Max, previously known as Trigger) I adopted last January ran away FOUR TIMES the first weekend we had him. I didn’t know what “He follows his nose” meant when I adopted him, plus the pound pulled a bait and switch on me. I went to see a different dog, called first, ran over and that dog was gone. “But we’ve got Trigger here…” He was adorable and sweet, but he kept getting out, and one Sunday morning was running down the center of the street (no cars, thank ______). I took him back to the pound and told them I can’t keep this guy safe. One lady yelled, “No refunds!” And I was like, wut? I don’t want a refund, but I’m bringing you a dog who has now been chipped and is taking Bravecto and sheesh. It’s not like I tried to sell him on FB. He’s living with a hunter, as he should be.

Joy tore her CCL (doggie ACL), so after seeing the dog orthopedic surgeon, having TPLO surgery, and almost $5K poorer (credit cards!!), she’s recovering but isn’t exactly resting in her crate. We’ll see how she’s healing when we go back to Vancouver,WA (VANCOUVER), for her 8-week follow up. I tell them I did the best I could, but no amount of Trazadone can chill her out.

The cats, Ventress and Samsara (kid named the former after some Jedi knight or something – it’s canonical :/ ), are like, “Oh, hey! There’s this thing called The Outside!” but they mainly look around from the porch and run in, sometimes snack on grass later barfing it in mystery spots I discover in the middle of the night in bare feet.

So, that’s the news from Hillbilly Meth Head Small Town Western WA where your shit will be stolen from under your nose. I’m a bit unhappy at the moment.

@SanFranLefty: And this might be old news to you: my kid recently came out as trans. I waited until she posted on FB to share the good news here. My world has shifted on its axis, but I suspect not nearly as much as hers :-). She told me in late June.

I am declaring that my child is trans.

I am declaring that nothing has changed in the past three months except for my awareness of the fact that my child is trans. My child is the same person.

I am declaring that it is unacceptable for someone to try to revoke my child’s civil rights based on their personal bias.

I am declaring that my child’s civil rights, along with those of all minority groups, need vigilant protection because so many people wish us harm. She now has another reason for people to hate her, and I’m afraid for her. And she now has another reason for people to respect her. She. Is. Strong.

@JNOV: I follow her on Twitter and FB, so when she started retweeting trans advocacy messages, I thought maybe she had a trans friend or something, or why the sudden interest?

And then a few weeks back, I thought: Ohhhhhhhhh…

And then she announced it.

Totally cool with me, as a representative of Old Farts. I’m all about people being who and what they are. And I’ve never understood how others get hung up about such things. But as I told her in another context, I’m a total Marge Gunderson about assholes. I just don’t get it.

@nojo: Yup. Around the time of the Womxn’s March, she started sharing articles about the pussy hats being a TERF thing but also the counter-argument that they aren’t. I was learning about trans-exclusionary radical feminists from friends of mine in a Canadian FB group (Worst Songs of All Time). Another one of my friends is non-binary, and I noticed that my daughter and I were putting up similar things from different places. At the time I thought, “Wow. This is the coolest kid ever.” Now I think, “Yup. I was right.”

So far my father and one of my brothers are onboard and supportive. My 77-y.o. dad. Times, they are a changin’. I suspect that one of my brothers won’t be kind and that the third will be.

Meanwhile, I’m giving her makeup tips and buying her cool Korean fun facial stuff :-) When she came out to me I said, “Well, I always wanted a daughter, too.”

@JNOV: My folks weren’t much older. My mom would have rolled with it, which is probably where I got that from. My dad, after a bit of shock and squeamishness, would have rolled with it too, even if he didn’t quite get it.

Based on experience. Your 24-year-old son quits journalism to find his bliss, you have reactions.

@JNOV: I thought I saw something on the Book of Faces about this. As you know, it’s been more than 15 years of me wanting to hug you & that love bug on our shared law school campus. She’s a rockstar, I hope she continues to rock the JNOVJr tag here or there about. LMK via private message as to what is her preferred name (besides JNOV Jr?)