Vee

As for my thoughts on McCain: He was a deeply flawed human being born to privilege, with a lot of old fashioned or outright bigoted ideas, who also simultaneously believed in hard work, personal honor and caring for veterans. His anger against Obama was very personal and petty - it fueled him in going along with the GOP post-08. Which is why I was more than a bit surprised he wanted Obama to give a eulogy. I think McCain and the press' vision of McCain often drove his own sense of self, more than his own actions in later years. It was a convenient vision of himself that wasn't always very true to his actual choices. But he still was a decent if very complicated man, who made both poor and decent choices. His resentments and weaknesses drove him to a lot of bad places, but he also owned up to a number of his mistakes eventually (Keating Five, Palin). Maybe not as much as I would have wanted, especially per his rancor towards Obama or his obsession with "the surge" - but reducing any one man to a barrage of wikipedia facts or ancient clips of a punchdrunk candidate on the campaign trail riffing on the Beach Boys is not really a fair summation. I thought he was a doddering, out of touch old man by the end of '08, and I disapproved of a lot of his behavior with the GOP Congress for years after. But I never, ever doubted McCain had a core of personal honor and integrity, no matter how much I disagreed with his choices or often found his political calculus inconsistent with that core. Most of us are more than one thing, and a lot of those things are messy and contradictory. It is the unfortunate polarization and absolutism of our times that has led to an us vs. them mentality and a need to fly one's banners for Side X or Y, and in online circles that often leads to a certain impulse to cull for moral and ideological imperatives anyone deemed insufficiently pristine. But we're all dirty. We're all damaged. We're all wrong somehow. McCain just did it in public for most of his adult life. He was a decent, honorable man who sometimes said or did indecent things, who believed in America and its ideals and wanted to serve the country more than himself. And he was a lot more decent than most of the GOP he left behind, and he had honor and morality. For all the shít I talked about McCain over many years I will not forget his giving Mitch McConnell a thumbs down. I never saw it coming. So I hope he rests well.

I usually can't stand Meghan McCain, but I sympathized with her greatly despite myself when Biden was on The View with her discussing his son's battle with cancer last winter, and this is beautiful:

RIP.

I think he did get her wrong under Krista Tesreau. With Karen's Tina it just seems mostly like a '90s outgrowth of the original to me, especially early on in fall '91 when Luna tells Tina they think alike or think the same way or something - and Tina is shocked to hear someone else say they feel the same way she does. It seems both so much like Andrea Evans as well as something new, as does Tina trying to conquer the country club and the Daughters of Llanview. But most of my experience with Andrea's Tina is on YouTube or in her 21st century stints, so I can only speak to that so much. I can't deny she is the ultimate Tina. I just wish Andrea's iteration had matured a bit more before the end of the ABC run when she finally did. I wonder how she could've played similarly socially conscious material. Andrea certainly has the skill. Pretty sure Malone had Tina teed up to be the now-mythical C.J.'s homophobic mother in the original plans for 2003. Same with his alleged plans for Becky Lee Abbott to be a racist when he intended to pair Rachel and Drew in 1996. Both very wrong.

Hot take of the month: I loved (and at times possibly preferred) Karen Witter's 'evolved' Tina under Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith. The material wasn't always perfect - nor could they have unseated Cord with Cain, not for good at least - but you could see the throughline, especially in her relationship with Luna.

Sharp Objects Castle Rock Doctor Who The Keepers Dark One Day at a Time Channel Zero: Butcher's Block Iron Fist (oy) Penance Fuller House very behind on: The Staircase Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Bloodline (final season)

Julee Cruise is back, still wild:

Say what?

No, being an adult is taking thirty seconds to check what you post is legit or relevant as opposed to posting it the instant you see it on Twitter. Which you don't do. But go for it, John, no one's stopping you least of all me.

The point is if it doesn't have any actual OLTL content, maybe it shouldn't go in the OLTL thread. You could have posted it as a status update - that's a great idea. You didn't because any time you see something, like a news item or a fake spumor, you usually don't fact check it or take very much time, you just post it. You don't wait to see if there is another thread - you just want to be 'first'. So you don't think about it, you just do it. That's what I have a problem with and it's why you posted this. People can differ, I stand by it.

Oh, by all means. Good luck, dude! You didn't have to live with the 2000-page spamfest that was the Prospect Park in production threads.

But there is no actual OLTL content. At all. Maybe you're not familiar with the sheer tonnage of daily nonsense that gets posted on this board with minimal moderation based on bad rumors, random tweets and whatever just because someone gets hyperfixated and wants to post it "first". This is the most random of all. I don't mind excitement, I mind posting random shít just to say you posted it. And I'm sorry, John, but you do that constantly.

This was either the first week or a day or two before, actually. Malone and Griffith had begun ghostwriting in January, IIRC. This may have been the last few days of that, because the way I recall it the Elvis Costello thing might've been the Thursday or Friday before the official start, or it might have been Monday. Griffith was also responsible for the music choices, I believe. IIRC Nora walks in on them on Monday or Tuesday of the first week. So this def might have been Friday. And yes - I and about fifty other people said Troy paid the troll toll on Lindsay. I was neither the first nor the last! I'll settle for you posting actual OLTL content in the OLTL thread as opposed to getting over-excited and posting anything just because you can. There's nothing OLTL in that video and you know it.

Can this marriage be saved? I think the Conways' hilarious dueling interview got posted a week or two ago.

More in NZ, etc:

He better ask for round the clock protection. The folks he goes way back with aren't from here, aren't the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, and don't stop at the prison gates.

And that's why November is so important.

That story is not enough to knock any of this off the front page or TV.