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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

Ha-ha! Gramps and his wacky conservatism!

Wait. Gramps is 70 years old? He went to Woodstock? He marched on the Pentagon? How did . . .

The fact that for every octogenarian that croaks we get 2 more Baby Boomers moving into the geriatric demographic is not filling me with lots of hope for immediate change. Couple this with the natural hardening of the attitudes that takes place over time and you can see how Fox News and the RNC have a near endless supply of marks.

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

Upvoted for “hardening of the attitudes.”

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I'm beginning to believe what the kids say about Boomers and why their revolution never worked out: They're in the main a bunch of selfish bastards. (Not you of course!)

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To be fair, whenever I (Gen-X) start to think this I recall that both Barack and Michelle Obama are (barely) Boomers.

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

If "Doctors? What do they know?" was a reference to Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson's sketch about Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, then I'll be paying the monthly fee until eternity. If not, I will anyway.

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Was that on Alfresco? I saw a bunch of those on Acorn TV but did not see that sketch. I only know the line as a classic old duffer's/proud shitheel's contemptuous rebuttal to the doc's insistence that they give something up.

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It was from their college days, the Cambridge Footlights Revue. Unfortunately, although much of that show is available on clips, I can't seem to find that particular bit. Fry plays Robert Browning wooing Thompson's invalid Elizabeth Barrett, and one of the running gags starts with "Doctors--what do they know?" and eventually gets to "God--what does he know?"

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

First one of yours I didn’t laugh at. Comedy is tragedy that’s happening to someone else. This is tragedy at the moment because it is happening to me. Wish it was comedy, but we can’t pick our parents. After 15 years of indoctrination and creeping dementia, my liberal parents have been brainwashed and now are even less connected to reality. The real tragedy is the almost constant fear that has been drilled into them. For that, even I could learn to actively hate if I hadn’t been taught so well by these very parents to turn hate into compassion.

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

Been there myself. My sympathies.

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

I'm watching this dynamic with my mother, the person who taught me empathy, who taught me that racism is always wrong, who taught me to always try to think of things from the other person's perspective. She's lived in Florida for 27 years now, where the evening local news always manages to lead off with at least one story of a Black person perpetrating some violent crime. She's become old, scared, and racist.

Contrast that with my father, a life-long Republican. He voted for Bush the dumber the first time around, but by 2004 had become so repulsed by Bush and the rest of the GOP's antics that he switched parties and became very active in supporting Democrats. I'm thankful he did not live to see the Tangerine Tyrant take over the White House.

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

I’m sorry to hear that. My father has always been pretty conservative, but he’s still an intelligent, tolerant man and no full-on Trumper. There are times, however, when he just vents about the perfidy of the Democrats, the insanity of the transgender movement, the falsity of global warming, et alia. I know that a large part of it is fear for his family’s future, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. The whole thing just reinforces how much I hate politics in general—how easily it separates us from the people we care about.

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Sorry you've had that experience. People turn for all sorts of reasons, not just the terrors of age. I've seen some of my old friends succumb to their worst instincts in this regard. You can't save everybody.

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Jan 22, 2019Liked by Roy Edroso

Why $51? It's just stuck in there between $35 and $75. It's not part of any numerical series I can think of (primes, Fibronaccis, log base e). Someone with a better knowledge of math help me out.

Speaking of prayers, not that I will ever be asked to address the Senate, state or federal, but I would go with the Episcopal one that says, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us."

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I see you spotted This Week's Egregious Typo. It has been corrected. Thanks!

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Give it fifteen more years, and Daily Kos will be the swill-fest for senectifying liberal Boomers. The clickbait headlines are there already. They just need the brain pill sub-con.

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"You can't save everybody...." but don't let that stop ya from tryin', Roy.

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