Ya know Ringo seems like the only one who was relatively even keeled. He worked as a session musician, and didn't seem to care much about being famous or anything like that. He did some dumb movies, walked away with the check, and said "see ya." No weirdness, no bullshit, just getting the job done.

I got into this on an earlier thread with someone here. And I actually saw an exhibit of some of her work at the Tate about 15 years back.

Ya know, people forget that the Beatles were together for basically 9 years producing an album every nine or ten months, on average. That output rate is simply unmatched by most contemporary acts. I could see them being tired — they had given up touring three or four years before they broke up.

The issue isn't how she was brought up, the issue is that xenophobia in working class communities happens.

Well, speaking as a Reagan era teenager… one of the things that made the late 80s look good was the recession that hit in Reagan's first term.

If you check median incomes and run that against inflation you find that the gains for most people topped out in the 70s. While real median incomes went up for a while, the rate of change slowed. And if you look at an inflation-adjusted graph those medians are about where they were 20 years ago.

Well, the funny thing is Trump's dad has a history here — he got into some trouble over not wanting black people in his housing developments. So while his public problems with non-whites are sort of new, as is his issue with immigration, it isn't like it's completely out of character.

Because it doesn't matter, really. He's a TV personality, remember, and part of the appeal is his projection as a "winner." Politicians are not always themselves in the demographic that they draw support from.

I think the problem is that statistically one can say, "We're doing better, see how the GDP went up and the unemployment rate went down and the stock market is great!" But those metrics don't matter to those of us who haven't found a steady job in the years since the crash. Or people whose jobs simply aren't coming…

The leap from attacking McCain to supposedly being behind non-famous politician veterans isn't that large though. Remember what happened when the GOP went after Senator Max Cleland. And look up the attacks on Tammy Duckworth.

Actually, Trump is a fascist, and that isn't wrong.

While there are few magic assassins in Vegas, I wouldn't want to mess with Moe Green either, you know? You're right that if they'd written into the dialogue (though it might have been too obvious?) something like "I'm from Vegas, what the heck do you think happens to people when they have an HR problem?"
:-)

Grunge and hip-hop, in music. What's interesting is that grunge stuff was really just the coming out as it were, of a lot of stuff that had been floating around college campuses (and to be clear, largely white campuses) for a few years as New Wave transitioned to what we think of as "alternative" now.

That's what I meant about his being off the hook (and your point I
think about the writers having no real consequences for him). Keeping
this thing a secret is actively harmful. And it's dumb.

"I know it was you, Ryan"

He isn't even a derelict dad — he didn't *know* about the kid, which lets him off the hook still further. And his reaction to having a long lost kid is unlike anything I've ever seen real people actually do.

The problem was that so often the Felicity tears were for things that didn't make a lot of sense to an adult who has been in a relationship with an actual human.

(arg) Again, you do understand the difference between saying "there should be no Klansmen in film ever" and "It's a problem if the film says Klansmen were all good people, bravely protecting us against the hordes?" Because that is the permission of Birth of a Nation.

I know people have probably gone over this but here is what bugged the living crap out of me (and this whole "I have to keep secrets" trope).

That isn't the problem. You can make movies about the KKK, and people do. But there's a big difference between Birth of a Nation and say, Mississippi Burning.