Spreadin’ Love 491

~ Laura

Thanksgiving gravy recipes.

Sarah Palin's TLC show may reveal that she doesn't actually know how to hunt or fish. Not that I really care.

The mainstream media has not been paying enough attention to the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Facebook is set to release its own e-mail service. From this chart on TPM, it looks like Facebook has more unique visitors than any of the existing e-mail services. Wow. I was also surprised that Yahoo has the most popular e-mail service.

Published by Laura

14 thoughts on “Spreadin’ Love 491”

  1. I’m detecting a bit of Brit vs. American country culture clash in the Palin piece.
    “Close examination of her equipment reveals that she is using a spinning rod and a reel (you can also see this in the screengrab above). This is significant: in the world of country pursuits, spinning is a dull and repetitive technique largely used by either children or complete beginners. Real afficianados prefer to fly fish, a more complex and absorbing style of fishing, which takes many years to master.”
    One of the commenters on the piece points out that while less gentlemanly, non-fly fishing is a nice way to wind up with a lot of fish.
    “…a pump-action shotgun (a vulgar weapon that has no place in a civilised sporting armoury, though that’s another story)…”
    “She looks, to me, like a woman who is completely inexperienced at fishing, shooting, using a boat, rock-climbing, moutnaineering, and all the other folksy pursuits she’s supposed to have mastered years ago.”
    Rock climbing and mountaineering are folksy pursuits? Gee willikers. Get this guy a couple of David Brooks books, so he can get some sort of sense of what American pastimes are folksy, and which aren’t. (Sorry, Doug, for mentioning he-who-must-not-be-quoted.)
    The comments on the piece are very good.
    Speaking of hunting and fishing, my rural Washington relatives tell me that it’s been a very big year for elk hunting. They are hunkering down and waiting for the smoke to clear and hoping nobody shoots a cow.

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  2. Yes, it’s just British sneering. I’ve never heard of fly fishing for anything but trout. Wikipedia says I’m wrong, but I certainly wouldn’t consider it an advanced version of reel fishing, nor would anybody who wants to win an election in nearly any part of the U.S. It’s a minority taste, like not bringing beer.
    The shotgun thing he mocks didn’t look bad. Not liking pump shotguns is his thing, I guess. And “click, po-choing” sound from opening a break action is cool. But the gun wasn’t being waved around or pointed at anybody. And you have to work the pump to load it, so I don’t see how she could load it as he wants.
    Where he mocks her for standing in the boat also seems a bit over-wrought. That’s a biggish boat and they are standing centered. My mom was always saying “sit down,” but my mom hated boats. My dad didn’t care as long as we stood carefully, but then my dad actually broke a canoe in half once.

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  3. “I’ve never heard of fly fishing for anything but trout.”
    Ditto. Also, I get the feeling that for a lot of fly fishermen, catching something is almost beside the point (compared to tying pretty flies, standing around meditatively all day, dodging yard work, etc.).
    “My dad didn’t care as long as we stood carefully, but then my dad actually broke a canoe in half once.”
    Wow.

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  4. Palin would NEVER fly fish. Fly fishing is something the east-coast elitists do in Alaska on their $8,000 vacations. She uses a fish finder and a rod and reel, just like all the other red-blooded Americans she knows.
    (Seriously. Ask a Minnesotan. Fly fishing is for guys with trust funds. Fancy schmancy baloney.)
    Yahoo probably has a big group of legacy users. Heck, I have two Yahoo accounts, dating back to 1996. It’s not that easy to change once you’ve had one that long. (That being said, neither is a primary account for me.)

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  5. It occurs to me that the $XX,000 shotguns from Europe or the U.K. are all going to be break-action while the more practical (3 shots) pump shotguns are affordable.

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  9. I’m an AC/DC fisherman, swinging both ways with reel and fly. I have to say that that guy is full of it, though: the notion that expert fishing is always fly fishing is just wrong and pretty much is a case of a posh snob walking right into a trap of his own making.

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  11. Good debunking. I hate it when people set themselves as experts without really being sure. Really, if you’re going to get all snobby about how you know more than someone else, you should do your research.
    (And, I think this even when you’re attacking Sarah Palin’s endeavors).

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  12. For all I know, the British guy is an expert at fly fishing, Euro-style gun-controlled county-house shooting, and small boating. He might be an expert and a snob.

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  13. I’m an AC/DC fisherman
    I was really hoping that this meant you put electric prods into the water to stun the fish. It works as well as dynamite, but is less conspicuous.

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