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The Essential Expendables

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It appears the government shutdown faceoff has come to its final day, as expected.

In a meeting last night the Republican leader of the House and the Democratic leader of the Senate could not even agree on whether they had agreed about anything. Senator Reid thought they at least had a deal on the numbers, but Representative Boehner was pretty certain they didn’t.

This does not bode well.

In preparation for the shutdown, government workers began getting furlough notices yesterday. Some received letters telling them that they are too important to the nation to be allowed to stay home and they will be expected to report for duty without pay, starting next week. There’s a letter worthy of committing to your personal archives – file it next to the one you got from that person you were dating in college when they said they no longer loved you, but could you still take care of their cat over Easter break?

It is unthinkable that those serving in war zones and their families back home will be asked to accept this arrangement given the sacrifices they have already made, so expect at least one more vote today to take care of them. For the rest of the essential expendables, get ready for a simultaneous embrace / stiff-arm. We can only hope those workers responsible for keeping the space station astronauts alive will do their jobs and not complain. Ditto for whoever puts food in the Interior Department fish tank. And please, don’t make too big a show of your devotion to duty – it interferes with the narrative that says public workers are overcompensated wastrels.

Speaking of narratives, the storytelling goes into high gear today just in time for our weekend entertainment. By Monday morning we should have a pretty good idea whose version of the tale has more box office appeal – the Republican melodrama about irresponsible Democrats blowing the family paycheck down at the local tavern to buy rounds for their lazy cronies while the homestead is being repossessed, or the Democratic thriller about Republican and Tea Party anarchists hijacking a government train packed with poor orphans headed to camp and de-railing it into the mouth of an exploding volcano.

These are two classic scenarios that come pre-loaded with heartless villains, helpless victims and possibly some last minute heroics. The problem? Though we’ve seen each storyline a hundred times, there’s a chance half the country will go to see one movie and half will enjoy the other.

Then what? Popcorn, anyone? Or is dad still saying “no concessions”?

What’s your favorite cliffhanger?

80 thoughts on “The Essential Expendables”

  1. Rise and keep turning those pages Baboons:

    I LOOOOVVVVE cliffhangers and have many favorites. Currently I’m hooked on the Mad Men and Nurse Jackie series which I get through Netflix. The Sopranos was really engaging, too, as the latest antisocial crime unfolded. Then there are book series, James Lee Burke writing my favorite Dave Robicheaux series in New Iberia Parish, Louisiana. His last one was the ultimate cliffhanger: Did Dave die and James is ending the series, or will he recover? Never forget Wordly Goods, either–great drama there.

    Sometimes I think I love my work because each client’s story is a new cliffhanger.

    However, nothing compares to my own life. Everyday when I wake up I think, “So what’s gonna happen today?” Are the pussy willows in the wetland near my house out and ready for me to cut? Will that flower I planted bloom? Will a new tomato appear in the garden? Do those deer tracks in the front flower bed mean we are doomed this year? Will my rapidly aging dog survive another day?

    To be continued…..This is Nilo Saharian until tomorrow.

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    1. Jacque, we’re also working our way through Mad Men on Netflix. We’re in the middle of season 3 right now with, apparently, no reason to rush ahead since season five doesn’t even start until next year.
      I read that there are supposed to be 7 seasons in all, rather like the Harry Potter book series, eh?

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      1. I think the Mad Men Wizards are different KIND of wizard though! So are the Witches. Can you NOT watch Mad Men when you have the discs. Those writers are good at compelling, if amoral, stories.

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  2. Morning all. I am, as I’ve mentioned here before, a big science fiction & fantasy fan and for awhile, Barbara Hambly was one of my favorites (her fall from my favor will have to be saved for another day). The Time of the Dark was her first book, but because I was doing deliveries the day it showed up at the bookstore, I had one of the first copies out of the box – it looked interesting. Wizards and dragons are my weak spot. Anyway, the book was my constant companion over the weekend, but as I started to get close to the end, I had a funny feeling… there was just too much left to be wrapped up in the number of pages that were left to be read. And I was correct – by the time I got to the last page, it was clear that Hambly was just going to leave Gil and Ingold hanging out there, waiting for the next book. I was so mad I threw the paperback across the room.

    Luckily, she wrote like wildfire for a few years and so the stories did eventually get their endings.

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    1. I feel your pain. I never got into Barbara Hambly, but I remember the 80s as the Age of the Trilogy in fantasy. No one was allowed to write a stand-alone book with an actual ending; everything I touched was nothing more than a set-up for the next volume, and when the first trilogy finally ended (and was repackaged in a collectible boxed set) there were plot threads left ready for the SECOND trilogy. A significant number of those trilogies would have been far stronger as either one long novel or, at most, a single sequel. There was so much padding going on, I was surprised the price of cotton didn’t rise!

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  3. Back in my babysitting days, there was no cable, Turner hadn’t bought up everything, and the late night movie was usually an oldie, but goodie. By that time, the kids where all fast asleep and I could settle in for a classic film and some quality needlework.

    On the night in question, the movie was Fail Safe, with Henry Fonda (I believe)-one of those apocalyptic Cold War thrillers that kept me living in fear most of my childhood and teen years. Well, the big question is, is there going to be Armageddon, or will the unfortunate mistake that has dominated the plot be reversed.

    The American bomber is nearing Moscow, annnnnndddddddd, the parents come home. Time for the tv to get shut off and me to get taken home. I get to my house and race for the basement where the tv is annnnnnnddddddd, the closing credits are rolling.

    I’ve never seen the end of that movie.

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  4. Wait a minute Dale, you didn’t mention whether or not the many “directors” in Congress would continue to get their fat cat paychecks? Have they decided that one yet?

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    1. Ha… I think we’ll know that one really quickly. If they let this mess go on for more than a day or so, then we can assume they’re still getting paid. We’ve seen this so many times in Minnesota w/ our legislature.. when they finally come right up against the minute that they will stop getting paid, it’s amazing how fast they can settle things. Or is that too cynical for this early in the morning?

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      2. Well, that’s the problem with a herd… you never get to know the individual animals, you just see the movement of the mass. I live next door to the woman who runs the Office of the Revisor of Statutes for the state and it seems just about every year, she’s working nights and early mornings, waiting for final decisions, right up until the deadline and then, suddenly, everything is back to normal. Hence my cynicism!

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    2. they are deemed as neccessary parts of the government so they do get paid,their workers get depleted pretty severly

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      1. I despise the judgement that lets soldiers go hungry while senators eat well. That sucks, doesn’t it? But money is surprisingly unimportant to MN legislators. They will do stupid things that benefit themselves, but money just isn’t what counts. Running out the legislative session and collecting more pay for it doesn’t offend them, but neither is it the reason they run out the session.

        They just want to win. Everyone wants to win. Every politician is sure that he or she is RIGHT about the issues, and they care passionately about winning. That means they just HATE compromising on a cherished principle in order to get their work done. Compromises are usually invented and imposed on them by senior leaders who have more perspective.

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    3. Based on what I see, scoleturbo, Congress does get paid in spite of a shutdown, though several Senators and Representatives are announcing plans to return their pay to the Treasury or donate it to charity while the government is closed.

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  5. a gracious, good and frugal morning to You All –
    i’m afraid i’m just tired of this all – and way too trusting that something will work out without me. uffda.
    as i age, i find i don’t enjoy cliffhangers as much as i did when i was young and immortal. i’m feeling i should say what i want to say now, not later – and i should also not be left hanging because what if i don’t wake up again?
    but this cliff-hanger isn’t real, in my book. it’s the same old thing and mighty tiresome.
    except for your bright and insightful take, Dale – we always enjoy.
    off to milk Dream and bury my head in her ample bellyhair.

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  6. When Pawlenty closed the state, I was deemed essential and given the honour of doing the work of 12 people in a nearly empty building. It was scary especially not knowing how long it was last. Plus the people who were furloughed were not asked to orient me to their jobs before they left. I nobody is left hanging off a cliff by this cliffhanger.

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  7. Clever line, Dale! “No concessions!” That’s a good one.

    I’ll answer the question in a bit. First I want to salute all you wonderful Baboons and wish you a great Friday and greater weekend. You would trash your lawn if you tried to rake it this weekend, so you have another guilt-free week before heavy lawn care begins.

    I’m in a giddy mood, having survived this winter. My little financial boat spent the winter scooting desperately, trying to keep from being crushed by icebergs. I just learned that I’m gonna be okay after all. Heartfelt thanks to all those of you who helped me in one way or another. Some Baboons are also angels.

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  8. My favorite cliffhanger is the Watergate story. If you prefer, think of it as “All the President’s Men.” It was an amazing cliffhanger in which the stakes were the fate of this democracy. And friends, although you hear comforting phrases like “our system managed to work as it was meant to,” it almost failed totally! That was a narrow call, really.

    If you weren’t alive and politically aware in the early 1970s, you will never quite understand how fascinating and spooky and involving this whole thing was. I think this is the only time I have “lived” a cliffhanger. I followed each turn in the story with intense interest, and when it became possible to imagine Nixon being impeached it was just too thrilling for words. History always looks so dull in the rear view mirror because we tend to assume it was always going to work out the way it did. Well, that isn’t the case at all here. It could have gone in several different directions, and I’ll never forget the almost morbid fear of watching it go the way it did.

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    1. I agree, Steve, an amazing time in our history. I used to take classes in summer school so I could get them out of the way in 5-6 weeks, rather than suffer an entire year and the summer of the Watergate hearings, I was actually taking American History in summer school (I love history, but didn’t love the teacher who taught during the regular year). Anyway, I was allowed to do AP work as well and as part of that I got to spend some of each day watching the hearings. Fascinating.

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    2. the scary part is that the crooks learned how to do it differently and what you have now is richard nixons white house take 2. they know how to paly the game better and distract the people from the issues but sending out alerts to joe mccarthys ghost. give dick cheney an a+ for his safty record at haliburton white house and do a quick hand off to the next talking head with a good hairdoo that can lead without wavering from the platform of the bible thumping foreigner hating dont tax the rich suck ups that speak pawlenty as if it were an elixer. nixon was dumb. these guys are not dumb. its scary

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  9. the showdown at the ok corral. the game of chicken being played by the feds is a good thing. i am going to the democratic convention tommorrow to figure out what my district will be up to for the next little while. this no concessions posture is just what we need to help visualize going forward. i think the tea party riding heard over the republican demigogs is extremely appropriate. they eected themselves to their positions based on the same unreal out of touch prepositions they are standing tough with. they believe these are the popular views and the correct views. the problem is they watch fox news and talk with other tea party heads while the dems talk amongst themselves and wonder how boehner can be such a bonehead. john just cries and says the democrats are out of touch with spending and we dont have a problem with taxes its with spending and the dems say ok but we all agree that no matter what we should keep bombing the middle east and paying a billion a day to save the world from the bad guys. the news is that all are being true to themselves and the compromise is going to be a sorry version of looking afterthe matters at hand. i can hardly wait to see what gets cut and how the no new tax mantra becomes where the heck did all these new fees come from. it is hard to believe we have to pay to keep this circus and sideshow of boneheads on the front page. good riddance. i am not sure that obama knew what he was getting into when he wished to be pres residing bullseye for the bandwagons zealots who make michele bachman look like a reasonable person. the cliffhanger part of the deal is waiting to find out if we can ever trust those lying sob’s again. away with the gays, mexicans, taxes, muslims, abortions, schools that work, medical care and trying to hang on to your home and bring on the tighten you belt and oh by the way my campaign fund needs another million or so over here.poppycock

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  10. Bristol Palin’s big payday
    By Lylah M. Alphonse, Shine Staff
    This just seems wrong: In 2009, the Candie’s Foundation gave $35,000 to groups that work to prevent teen pregnancy—but that same year it handed Bristol Palin $262,500 just to talk about the issue.
    i hit the wrong button on my yahoo account and was taken to shine site. here is the headline. tea party ho!!!

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    1. My comments about state legislators not being in the game to make money do NOT apply to the Palin family. They have ideological reasons for doing what they do, but that family loves getting its snout in the public trough!

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  11. Good morning to all:

    My big cliff hanger today is how will I do taking the grand kids to the zoo with my wife. I’m sure it will be okay or maybe not entirely. Kids will be kids and these kids can behave a little like the kids on Barb’s farm at times. I’m sure we will have fun and, I hope, not too much fun if you know what I mean.

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    1. which zoo?
      i cant believe they close it at 4 so yo had better get to it. assuming the tc zoos are the option. my kids went to como this week and enjoyed the flowers and oragatangs. mn zoo is great with the bears. enjoy the 60 degree day.

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    2. Oooh, oooh… hope it’s the new zoo (I suppose it’s not that new anymore, is it?) They have the Farm Babies going on in April!

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  12. TGITH–re Earthly Remains. I mean to get back to you on this yesterday. Right now my cliffhanger is if Hickory Tech will get my home network working right. Anyway, I do not think things went wrong at Earthly Remains. I think they all moved onto better incomes. The store had been closed for years. My wife used to go there twice a week and got to know them all . One of them–I think Jordan– told her that with a new child he needed a better and steadier income. I think the auction was something like a final recognition that they were done in a business they loved and were very good at.

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    1. Well, they had a great store, so from that aspect, it’s too bad. Of course, I haven’t been to Mankato in years, so it’s not like I’d been partaking of it… And I can see that a steadier income is helpful. If I remember right, Jordan and his wife had degrees in art-driven stuff, so steady income a bit on the circumspect side. Glad to hear that the family is doing well and that’s the most important thing. Jordan had -another- kid? …geez… Thanks for the update!

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      1. Do not be sure I know which is which. Nor does my wife remember for sure. The youngest one, dark hair, once lived near me in lower North Mankato. (I moved, not him.) That’s the one who had the child and found other work.
        And, yes indeed, the best antique store I was ever in, of many.

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  13. Maybe because I deal with human disasters and cliffhangers on a regular basis, I really have a hard time with suspense. My daughter gets so mad at me because I won’t watch suspense movies with her unless she tells me how they end. Jacque, do you experience the same thing?

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    1. that might be the answer, Renee – when one deals with all of the real life disasters every day it is sidtressing to do the same after you get home. in public health i saw things every day that made me know how lucky i am. when Steve (who taught college and who, i laughingly say, has a pretty much ivory tower view of things) wants to watch depressing, real-life films i mostly crawl into my shell. had enough of that. although i loved Deadwood and Sopranos – mostly because they just killed and mistreated each other and didn’t go outside of their little weird circles. 🙂 my favorite show was “St. Elsewhere”
      Nurse Jackie makes me angry – don’t know why…….

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    2. I do. I rarely watch suspense, especially gory stuff or “social issues” like child abuse. Too much like work. Nice to know I have company!

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  14. Well said, Dale. I think you summed up the situation rather nicely.

    I’ve found that my best cliffhangers are when I put the character in peril and then don’t know how to get him/her out of it. Up to this point, I’ve always found a good, logical, and (usually) exciting way to do extricate my characters out of their predicament but I have to really work at it. But that’s my ‘acid test’ for cliffhangers. If I don’t know how I’m going to get them out of it, that’s a good sign.

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  15. Our latest domestic cliffhanger (will Husband find full-time, gainful employment when he’s done with school?) was resolved with a “yes” – his part-time student position at the U of M is rolling to a regular full-time employee/non-student gig when the new academic year starts.

    I was young enough that mostly what I remember of Watergate was filtered oddly through my elementary-school brain (if Ford is going to be our new president how come you didn’t get to to vote for him, Mommy?). The Reagan years, that was a unique time period, too…and as much as I’d rather not relive those 8 years (even if I could also get the much skinnier me back, dancing around to the Go-Gos), it seemed like there was at least a touch more conversation between the parties on Capitol Hill, no matter how much they disagreed. The rhetoric was still quite high, and the sound bites vitriolic (and, oh, don’t get me started on the parallels between the Moral Majority and some of the Tea Partiers), but at least you might get popcorn while you waited to find out if there would be a cliffhanger or resolution.

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    1. (oy, I never thought I might get nostalgic for the Reagan years, which laid such a fine groundwork for Bush II and his cronies…sad sad sad…)

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  16. We have, I hope, a dependable network now. But we are off to Grandparents’ Day in Franklin. Then a birthday party tomorrow for a six-year-old.

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  17. I confess. I was an X-files fan. That show hooked me like no other has ever done. I loved the characterization and recurring themes. They did a great job with lighting and scenery too. I thought it was fascinating and each episode seemed like a cliffhanger to me.

    On a more mundane note: taking Pippin anywhere in the car is a cliffhanger. Will he throw up? He usually does. I put him securely in a big, bolstered dog bed and cover it with towels. I give him Dramamine for long trips. If I gave him any more Dramamine it would be abusive and dangerous. A 50 mg tab does nothing! It’s frustrating. I took him to River Bend Nature Center in Faribault last evening for a long hike. He jumped into the Straight River and came out grinning and shaking. He then got super muddy running around. Then he jumped into a duck pond. He came out grinning and shaking. I picked him up, soaking myself with pond water, and carried him back to the car and drove back to Waterville. He threw up in my lap as I pulled into the driveway at home. I guess it’s not really a cliffhanger if you know how it will turn out…

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    1. The first Irish Setter I had when I got out on my own did not care for the car much either. Normally this wasn’t too bad… most of the places I took her to were fairly close, but one summer I ended up taking her (& my other dog, who thought the car was just a fine place to be) on a 10-hour drive to St. Louis to visit my mom. Irish Setter stood just over my shoulder the whole trip – panting right in my ear. I thought I would go insane. I called several vets in the St. Louis area and told them the whole sad story and finally found one who would agree to see us and gave me a small prescription for anti-anxiety meds for the trip home. So an hour before we left on our last day, I gave her half a pill. Then after about 2 hours in the car with no significant change, I gave her another half. 3 hours after that… then 2 hours after that… by the time the drive was over, I realized I had given her 3 entire pills! She was still standing and panting to the end, but after she got into the house, she jumped up on the sofa, laid her head down and went to sleep. She slept for 16 hours! If it weren’t for the occasional snoring and shifting, I would have had to check her to see if she were still alive!

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    2. On the other hand, it’s not really a cliffhanger if you know it’s going to end with a dog throwing up in your lap. If only there was a cliff at the end for Pippin to hang his head over …

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    3. Our dog throws up in the car if she can’t see out the window. My neighbor and I (but not the dog) are going to Fargo this weekend, as our daughters’ vocal teacher wants them to participate in a juried vocal competition at a NATS meeting (National Association of Teachers of Singing). I get to turn pages for the neighbor, who is also the girls’ collaborative pianist (they aren’t just accompanists anymore.). I hope the Red River dikes hold. Maybe we can fill sandbags between arias. Have a great weekend, baboons. I’m excited for the girls, but I admit it is rather trying to hang out with serious teenage singers. Young string players are so much better behaved, for some reason, and not nearly so emotional.

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      1. thats no way to refer to that red river quartet. personal choices are what we are all in favor of here on the trail. i hope they hold too but there has to be a more pc way of wishing them well.

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  18. Aahhhh, congrats to those whose cliffhangers are past – Steve, Anna’s Husband, Clyde’s network!

    I remember the Dallas cliffhangers in early 80s for some reason – “Who Killed JR?” And I too loved The X-Files, but my favorite is Deadwood, of which we’re about to rent the 3rd season – every episode has a cliffhanger of some kind…

    We just spent four days last week with Step-son, and heard ‘way more detail about his life than usual. Mario’s entire life is a series of leaps from one cliffhanger to another. The current ones (at least the ones we know about) are just little cliffhangers, so all is well. 🙂

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  19. Morning–

    My son is a senior in HS and they’ve been discussing this in American Government class. He’s very annoyed with the whole thing so it’s lead to some interesting discussions which is kinda cool.
    I also fear a disheartening on his part… now what do I do about that?

    (Anyone else have children playing Lacrosse? First game tomorrow for our team. Any chance baboons might cross paths??)

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    1. baseball at our house. but lacrosse is a well respected sport. one of my sons buddies is going to some ivy league lacrosse scholarship deal with his passion. i get a raised eyebrow when i ask the lacrosse players if they have caught any butterflies with that little net.

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  20. I am still waiting to find out whether Stuart Little ever finds Margalo.

    When I was a kid, it really bothered me that the book didn’t end with a happy reunion. I still feel a little unsettled about it.

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    1. maybe you should write the ending that suits you and resolve it for the well being of your soul and the doubtless masses that feel the same way you do. publish it and begin a career resolving the unended plots that the author never got around to. i’ll bet there are plenty to go around.

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  21. remember the serials at the movies in the 3o’s . i didn’t see them but the superman greeen hornet, stuff that the movies used to put on were a kick. i belonged to piper film club and every week thye would put in the next instalment of whatever the seriel was. always a favorite. the guy was going over a cliff in his car after the high speed chase and then the show tells you to tumne in next week. when you come back from the real world to join them next week the camera angle has changed and instead of careening over the cliff the folks in question were forced to take a hard left and the road they were on was a challanging but managable detour and they escaped the bad guys but now must figure out how to pursue them with the tire flat from hitting the big pothole in the middle of the detour road. what rotten luck. i think it would be good to do the history of the world in comic book form and work through one challange then the next with a cliffhanger switcheroo in the middle. oh the black plauge is destroying the western world and the villages of europe are being decimated and the towns have to be burnt to save those who are still alive. what could be worse… tune in next week and discover the traveling minstrels who have the good fortune of having many vacant cottages to move into temporraily while the construct songs of famine and pestulance that the remaining townsfolk will all enjoy and relate to. then…200 years later… the industrail age hits and all the farm folk have to move to the city and starve to death because the need for laborers has made them have to rewrite their destiny… tune in next week.. then america fights off the brits and meicans and declares itself the best nation but then all the people have been outsourced and there are no jobs to tax and the world is becoming a complicated place. tune in next week…. no taxes, bomb the bad guys, rid ourselves of the unions, no one has any work and the black plague is the only thing that can bring us back together to fight a common enemy… tune in next week to see where the singing troubador ends up performing the limericks about wisconsin and gets tarred and feathered by the silent mjority… starring ….john boehner as the troubador and the guy who burns the bodies in the black plauge, barrack obama as the village mayor whio is trying to explain that burning the town down will not the end to the problem… nancy pelosi as the despondant mother whose family all died in the plauge and michele bachman as the vermin who keeps getting stronger and stronger eating all the dead and dying remains along the way and seducing the pied piper to play the flute… no wait thats a different story. these cliffhangers do get complicated don’t they?…

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