674 Comments

Didn't Danny Aiello play basketball, too? And was a Mormon? I almost remember him.

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Hey-O! I'm old enough and enough of a sports fan to get that joke.

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I don't particularly like Madonna's music, but what really grinds my gears is that she thinks she's an edgy rebel for making decisions that are firmly within the mainstream.

Case in point: "Papa Don't Preach", which was made from the POV that anybody would "preach" about a pregnant teenager carrying to term.

If she had any guts at ALL, she would have made "Papa Don't Preach" about a pregnant teenager telling her Papa that she had made up her mind that she was getting an abortion.

It was 1986. With the debatable exception of Michael Jackson, Madonna was the biggest pop star on earth. She could have made a video of herself GETTING an abortion, and it would not have done more than dent her career.

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I was a big fan of Madonna back in the day so that song was all over the place. I think it was more about the idea of a teenager carrying a baby at all (because teen pregnancy was such a talked about topic back then) then having or not having an abortion.

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The funny part was that a lot of the “mainstream” (not really mainstream) lost their shit over it so (sooooo!) dramatically.

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Not a particular fan of Madge so I could be wrong here - in 1986, I was listening to Big Black and the Subhumans, not her. But I was under the impression that Papa Don't Preach was the hit that put her on the map; and even if not, she was still new enough to the game that I doubt a blatantly pro-abortion song would've done the same numbers for her. I think the implied alternative is to give the baby up, not termination.

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I believe that was "Borderline" (I could be wrong though)

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Robyn. You know everything. So tell me what is an extra virgin?

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And where are the Extra Virgin Islands? And does the olive oil come from there? And are they a legal answer in Worldle?

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Understudy for the role of Mary in the Christmas pageant

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One who's not in the credits but has screen time in the background.

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This Birds of Prey movie is pretty fun.

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I liked the short lived TV show... Dina Meyer is a Goddess!

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Ah, yes, that video IS terrible. How on earth did you find it, Robyn?

Back in the 80s, I had that particular Madonna cassette get stuck in my car's cassette player, and I could not get it out. For about six months, anytime I drove anywhere, that was all I could listen to. No radio, it was Madonna or silence. Fortunately, my commute was pretty short. I finally took a knife to the thing and pried it loose.

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Same thing happened to me! Sorta, anyway. I was working as a PA on a Hyundai commercial back in 2004, and for two days, I was driving a truck with The Best of Ronnie James Dio stuck in the cassette holder. Now, I'm not the biggest heavy metal fan, but I tried, I really tried. It was not fun.

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My local supermarket has a surprisingly good selection for a lower-priced store, but when it comes to olive oil, I can find only one brand of extra-virgin oil that uses olives actually grown in Italy. (Sicily, actually.) All the others have Italian-sounding brand names and labels festooned in red and green, but when you look closely at the label, they use weasel phrases like "Packaged in Italy." That means they ship tankloads of plonk from Algeria or Libya or God knows where up to a bottling plant in Milan.

The genuine oil is, of course, about three times more expensive than all the plonk.

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I used to get Greek olive oil from Italian Importing Co., in Des Moines. I liked it better and it was cheaper. Now i cannot get it at all.

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My mother, like most Greek women of her generation, would buy that stuff by the gallon tin.

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We have an olive oil store like 5 minutes from my house, literally. I’ve never been in but it’s right next to my favourite orthopaedic shoe store.

Those are the most middle aged sentences I ever wrote.😭

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So I'm hanging out here until we get a new post. That murder one is too grim for me.

(This post is not a criticism of Robyn and should not be used by others as a jumping off point to direct a bunch of misplaced anger towards her. )

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Understandable. That one’s a little grim.

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Danny was kinda a dick

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If anyone here does FB, Editrix has a wonderful obituary for her dad over there.

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Her dad passed? Oh, deep condolences to Rebecca and the entire family.

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Yeah, her previous posts sort of implied this might be coming, but knowing it is likely to come and having it actually happen are not the same thing.

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Did those dickwipes actually include a Congressional pay raise in the CR?

The are fucking horrid.

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Yes they did, but nondickwipes got it taken out before the clunker passed.

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the Catholic church has bigger fish to fry than Madonna kissing Black Jesus.

were were we? oh, yeah, I was just musing that we really need to stop letting the Republicans get away with the framing of too much/too little government because this neocon framing enabled the neocons and ultimately PAB.

I feel like we should probably try and point out that different styles of government have different results without getting bogged down in political theory. you can avoid a lot of the already completely meaningless (for regular discourse anyway) PolSci terms this way.

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even to completely dysfunction it does as the GOP has demonstrated ad nauseam.

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Oh, the Catholic Church is just fine with pedophilia, it seems. Fuck their opinions on the oeuvre of Madonna.

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It's not that they're 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 with pedophilia. It leaves their hearts heavy etc. etc. It's just that they don't really want to 𝘥𝘰 anything about it, like holding people accountable. There's a difference.

Or so they would have us believe.

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The Baltimore archdiocese fought hard to suppress a report, then fought hard too keep the monseignors' names out of it. Now it has preemptively filed for bankruptcy, because tomorrow rape victims can sue.

It has to have enough to keep its schools going, you see.

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On a completely related note, today is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation up here, which reckons with our shitty legacy of genocide against Indigenous people, including residential schools.

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This has been going on for years. My great aunt’s best friend used to not go to confession because the priest liked to feel her up. She was 10. Her mom and grandma would beat her but she still refused to go. That priest got moved after a bunch of grey eyed lighter skin children were born to many young women in the neighborhood that frequented that church.

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Yeah had a great uncle who was an altar boy for 5 minutes until the priest tried something. Then he quit. Adult solution was to ensure all altar boys were out of his preferred age range.

Happy NDTR day! Remember the late great Sinead O’Conner’s inspiring words about fighting the real enemy!

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Baltimore too

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Maybe they'll try to do like Milwaukee did and transfer all their assets into a cemetery trust or some damn thing. Get the right lawyer and he'll hide your money indefinitely.

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Since the archdiocese is a wholly owned subsidiary, the Vatican will have to file for bankruptcy for that dog to hunt.

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No each diocese is its own legal entity. If you’re gonna cover up years of abuse by moving priests you totes gotta separate that. That way only SOME dioceses go bankrupt. Here in Canada the SK courts let the Catholic Church set for less $$ on the promise they would jointly fundraise $$ for abuse at residential schools and then when they raised like a couple hundred thou he let them be done. No one had to sell a church or anything because they are criminal CELLS not a linked enterprise.

It’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which started as Orange Shirt Day to honour kids who had everything including their names stripped when they went to residential school. Churches ran that racket. Only the Catholics still refuse to release their records. Vatican Archives! What a racket!

Sorry, feeling super bitter today on this.😢

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I thought the American Catholic League was separate from the Vatican?

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Has the Crazy Caucus® removed all the wacky shit and the big budget cuts? No? Sorry, Kevin, not today then.

𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀: 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝘂𝘁𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝘀 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗚𝗢𝗣 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/30/government-shutdown-updates/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝟰𝟱-𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗴𝗮𝗽 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4231745-house-republicans-to-vote-on-45-day-clean-stopgap-funding-bill/

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Let's see: Say the Dems vote for this - then we have

"Oh sorry you poors, look what the Biden administration did - with the Dems support!!"

or don't vote for it

"Oh sorry everyone government shutdown - too bad the Dems did not help with this when they could have"

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Clean passage of the deal Qevin agreed to with OHJB months ago. Fuck the Fascist Caucus.

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"The last person to be jailed in the United States for blasphemy was Abner Kneeland in 1838 (a Massachusetts case: Commonwealth v. Kneeland). From 1925, the Supreme Court applied the Bill of Rights to all states."

on the other hand, in the UK...

"Whitehouse v Lemon is a 1977 court case involving the blasphemy law in the United Kingdom. It was the last successful blasphemy trial in the UK."

Also

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-blasphemy-film/uk-film-banned-for-blasphemy-gets-rating-23-years-on-idUKTRE80U1LK20120131

(I had a copy of that video)

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Well, they do have a Defender of the Faith over there. Over here, we have lots of people who are self-proclaimed ones.

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Keep in mind that particular "faith" was invented by Henry VIII just so he could get a divorce

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