Nice little Washington Post “lifestyle” piece on Judge Ginsburg:
… It shows what a different time it was in judicial politics that Ginsburg — a leader of the American Civil Liberties Union, a believer in the “evolving” Constitution and promoted by the White House as a supporter of abortion rights — was approved by the Senate, 96 to 3.
She is reminded each time she unlocks the door to her chambers; her key is on a plastic keychain with the words, “With best wishes, Strom Thurmond.” The former segregationist and Dixiecrat from South Carolina was one of the 96.
So Ginsburg understands politics but does not feel she faces a deadline to leave so that Obama, whom she admires, can choose her successor.
“I think it’s going to be another Democratic president” after Obama, Ginsburg said. “The Democrats do fine in presidential elections; their problem is they can’t get out the vote in the midterm elections.”…
There is something of a Ginsburg renaissance at work. Her willingness to take on the conservatives on the court has delighted liberals, who never thought she was quite liberal or bold enough. Students pack her appearances at law schools. The slightly profane Ruth Bader GinsBlog praises her every move; “Notorious R.B.G.” T-shirts are available online.
A new opera, “Scalia/Ginsburg,” will premiere next year, the work of Derrick Wang, a composer and recent graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law. Dueling constitutional interpretations, set to music.
And still, the question: When is it time to leave a lifetime appointment?
“When I can’t do the job, there will be signs,” Ginsburg said. “I know that Justice [John Paul] Stevens [who retired when he was 90] was concerned the last few years about his hearing. I’ve had no loss of hearing yet. But who knows when it could happen?
“So all I can say is what I’ve already said: At my age, you take it year by year.”
***********
What’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?
SiubhanDuinne
I don’t need any more stuff in my life — I am trying hard to divest, not acquire — but boy oh boy, am I ever tempted to order a “Notorious RBG” t-shirt!
Hungry Joe
I’ve been inspired by the teabaggers who’ve pointed out that we shut down the government, and — look around! Everything’s okay! So yesterday I stopped putting gas and oil in my car, and it’s running perfectly. Think of all the money I’ll save.
Suffern ACE
O.K. not the biggest Raiders fan and it’s kind of fun to make fun of Raiders Nation vs. the World, but one can’t say the Nation doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Linnaeus
I always respected her, but the more I learn about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the more I realize she just might be the best justice on the Supreme Court. Though I’m getting to like Kagan a lot too.
Suffern ACE
@Hungry Joe: Good. I want my gas to fall back down to $1.86, which is what is was before Obama took office. Stop buying gas and we’ll see how cheap it gets. I sure want to relive that period again.
The Dangerman
It don’t mean a thing
If it ain’t got that
swingJustice kicking Boehner’s ass/ella
Southern Beale
Republicans are addicted denial. Maybe they’ll overdose.
some guy
let’s face it, women make better Supreme Court justices. more women, please.
Mike in NC
That was a great episode of Boardwalk Empire on HBO.
Alison
Can she adopt me?
I mean, I love my parents, but still.
PsiFighter37
Yeah…don’t think I’ll see another 96-3 justice appointment in my lifetime. The GOP has politicized the process too much.
On another note: beginning to contemplate music options at my wedding. What are people’s thoughts on live band v. DJ?
David Koch
#44
Yatsuno
@PsiFighter37: Live music for the ceremony, DJ for the reception. No matter how good a cover band they are, they’ll never know every song a DJ will have or can get quickly.
MomSense
Because I am a thin person who exercises regularly and I also have high cholesterol, I decided to go vegetarian. So tonight the boys wanted chipotle beef burritos which meant cooking all day. I made tempeh for myself which was fine but completely unexciting and now I am craving bacon, beef, ham, and sausage.
While I do love the notorious RBG, I am of the opinion that she should give enough notice for president Obama to choose her successor. Do not count your chickens before they hatch, RBG. Three more years of dysfunction junction in DC and I am not optimistic that we will have a Dem president next time.
PsiFighter37
@David Koch: I blame Obama!
Oh, wait…
Redshirt
@PsiFighter37: Get a rapper. Both bases covered.
amk
@PsiFighter37: There is just one degree of separation from blame and Obama. I too blame him for that.
Redshirt
I’m kinda thankful for the Shutdown and the looming economic destruction of the First World for moving Greenwald chat off the blog. BORING!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
For anyone who missed my blogwhoring earlier, I finally have my essay about “Love Me Tonight” posted:
http://www.theinsufferablemoviesnob.blogspot.com/2013/10/love-me-tonight-1932.html?m=1
Cassidy
@MomSense: Eat it. It’s not bad for you.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Nice! Will go check it out!
srv
The Republic hangs by a plastic keychain.
BB withdrawal here. But I guess we’re going to be getting plenty of real-world sociopathic behavior from here on out.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Your opinion, bro.
Nicole
@PsiFighter37: I second Yatsuno’s suggestion. A good DJ can read the energy of the crowd and adjust the music accordingly. We had a playlist at ours that we asked the DJ to play, but after “Rock Lobster” cleared the floor (great song, but not necessarily dance music) we handed the reins over to the DJ and let him do what he was paid to do. Worked out much better.
khead
In a just world, Ginsberg’s writings against Scalia in the ACA would be replayed as much as the NFL highlights I will see repeated on ESPN ad nauseum tomorrow.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Nope. Meat isn’t bad for you. Gorging on meat daily is bad for you.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@MomSense:
Depending on how old your boys are (I’m assuming they’re at least school-age), you may end up having to dictate veggie meals at home. One of the biggest reasons people fail at making dietary changes is that they try to cook one meal for themselves and another for their family, and it’s just too much of a burden.
Tell them that if they want meat, they can get it at the school cafeteria or while out with their friends, but at home it’s going to be vegetarian. If you can explain why, that will probably help since they don’t want you having a heart attack or stroke at a young age, either.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Nope, that’s just your opinion, man. You’re welcome to have it, but it’s not Truth.
Suffern ACE
@Nicole: I also agree with this. There are only 2-3 songs that the couple should be selecting for those specific dances (father daughter, monther son, first dance for the couple and wedding party). Those could be sung by the Wedding Singer (:-)). But after that, let the DJ take over. There are other things to worry about that day.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Cassidy:
It depends. A vegetarian or vegan diet is not automatically healthier than an omnivorous one that chooses lean meats, but people with certain health issues (especially cardiac ones) are often better off severely reducing their meat intake or even eliminating it.
Redshirt
So, a lot of people get a band AND a DJ for their wedding? That shit ain’t cheap, right? Why not just go all DJ? Or hell, make a mix on your Ipod/Ipad/Iphone.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Sorry. Exercise and nutrition science disagrees with you. Try again.
Actually don’t. If you’re not sure what you’re saying, then don’t say it.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: Also, the onion on your belt is making my kids cry.
Suffern ACE
@efgoldman: Hmmm. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t offer up a BJ Band for the ceremony. If Yutsano comes out with a susaphone, I think I’ve still got my ukelele somewhere. That’s 1/2 of a quartet right there. We can do that famous Hawai’ian polka music that’s famous the world over.
Keith P.
Just turned on the Texans-49ers after watching HBO for the last hour and a half. I was able to watch 5 minutes before Schaub threw yet another interception (to go with his pick-6 a minute-and-a-half into the game), so I’m gonna find a better way to spend my evening. Like clipping toenails.
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I completely agree. Meat is not bad for you, except in particular cases, but for the most part, it can be a part of a very healthy diet. Moderation, as with everything, is key. Just saying that such and such food is “bad” for you is just plain ignorant.
But, we’re not talking about a cardiac patient. She specifically said she’s relatively thin and exercises regularly. The argument could be made, depending on the type and intensity of exercise, that the lack of animal protein works against her as the recovery process would be eating muscle tissue.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Sound you like you graduated from Bovine University.
Some meat can be healthy for some people, but it’s not like some universal truth as you seem to think it.
Cacti
I appreciate Justice Ginsberg as a jurist, and I sincerely hope that she steps down sometime in the next three years.
Time and her personal medical history are not on her, or the country’s side.
Suffern ACE
@efgoldman: Having twice been assigned to be the friend who watches over the playlist, I have to say, I’d rather not have the duty. But then at the 2nd one, all the couple had done was set their ipod to random, which meant I needed to watch over it quite a bit.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Nope, just don’t believe in diet fads and half truths. Food, with the exception of those with particular allergies, is not unhealthy; eating habits are. The body can yank sustenance out of tree bark and cardboard if necessary. It’s a very adaptive system. Stating that one particular food is “bad” based on a minority population is silly and not based in any kind if knowledge or logic.
Sly
And still, the response.
Ash Can
@Cassidy: She also specifically said she has high cholesterol, hence her desire to avoid meat. Telling her to eat it anyway is silly.
mai naem
Can we just leave RBG alone? She’s a fucking awesome justice. Yeah, she’s had health issues but so has Roberts. Scalia doesn’t look all that healthy to me. Neither does Thomas. Breyer had the fall from his bike or whatever. And Sotomayor is a diabetic.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: There’s no logic in compassion? In morality?
Cassidy
@Ash Can: Again no. There is nothing wrong with satisfying a craving. Secondly, if the desire to eat meat persists, lean meats in small portions can be added back into the diet. Of course, increase fiber and water intake, eat mostly veggies. blah, blah, blah, common sense healthy shit.
SectionH
@PsiFighter37: Elope.
You think I’n kidding. I’m so not.
Jeff Spender
@Redshirt: Non-sequitur, man.
Are we talking about nutrition or are we talking about the ethical and moral dilemmas about eating meat?
Completely different things.
Wally Ballou
Dodgers are killing the Braves, 10-4 in the 7th.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: That has nothing to do with it. If a person chooses to eat veggie, power to them. IMO, it’s the healthiest food lifestyle. But again, the zombie persistence of half truths and fad diets is not something I participate in. Meat is not bad for you. Too much meat is bad for you. Same with sugar, etc. As I said, the food is not the problem in most cases; successful nutrition involves good eating habits.
Redshirt
@Jeff Spender: Nutrition is but a part of the body. One cannot be considered “healthy” who suffers from karmic negativity.
Jeff Spender
@Redshirt: Karmic negativity?
Seriously? That’s all you got? That’s some grade-A snake-oil shit, man.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Thats funny. I needed that. My labs and vitals would beg to differ. I eat meat every day, sometimes twice.
Roger Moore
@some guy:
I don’t think that’s it. Democratic nominees make better Justices, and Democrats are a lot more likely to nominate women.
Redshirt
Karma is but the law of cause and effect. Or, as Newton said: Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: I guess my all Kielbasa diet is the pathway to super health, given that meat is so healthy.
Bob In Portland
Gee, the Niners are doing so well tonight I think I’ll stay up for the Raiders.
MorningtonCrescent
I watched a couple of movies I’ve wanted to see for a bit, The Petrified Forest with Humphrey Bogart as the bad guy, and The Hitch-Hiker starring William Talman as the psychotic criminal and who played Hamilton Burger in the old Perry Mason series (which I think is still the best series of its genre even after several decades).
Cassidy
@Redshirt: You know that’s not what I said. Now your just being butthurt because you got made fun of over that karmic crap. Food is fuel. There is no single right way to get sustenance.
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: I don’t believe in demonising any food. There really is no such thing as a bad food, especially when you consider our ancestors ate a vast majority of this stuff for centuries an turned out okay. The American diet suffers from us not knowing everything we’re eating due to overreliance on processed foods. Say what you want about Rachael Ray, but she started a movement to get people cooking more, and that is by far the healthiest thing anyone can do for themselves. Meat or no meat is not the point. Controlling what you eat matters more than anything.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo is what it is.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Redshirt:
I know you’re just trolling at this point, but there actually is some evidence that it’s specifically processed meats (like kielbasa and other sausages) that cause heart disease, not meat in general. It’s still being studied, but it’s a very interesting recent finding.
Roger Moore
@Yatsuno:
From my time working as a waiter at wedding receptions, I found that it depends on genre. For popular music, you can’t be a DJ. If you want Jazz or Swing, a live band is much better. I never saw a wedding where they had Country or Rap, and I doubt that PsiFighter+37 would want either one.
PsiFighter37
@SectionH: Too late, deposit on the location is already down.
@Roger Moore: For me, I anticipate on mixing in the non-shitty pop music of recent years (hard to pull off, but whatever) with some more old-school stuff. Throw in a little Billy Joel/Elton John, some 80s rock jams, and so forth…the idea is to be accessible to the tunes I was growing up with, along with what everyone else probably wants.
That said, there’s a dance floor for a reason, which probably crosses out things like Weezer. Maybe I should just get a fucking karaoke machine, since everyone except for me is going to be lit (we have an open bar)…
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Jesus was a Vegetarian, dude. Think about it.
Jewish Steel
Did somebody say Scalia?
Had you already arrived at originalism as a philosophy?
I don’t know when I came to that view. I’ve always had it, as far as I know. Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change…
Source
Jeff Spender
@Redshirt:
No, not it isn’t. That’s a principal of Newtonian mechanics and has nothing to do with physics. Let’s see how that sentence logically plays out: because I threw a ball against a wall and applied force, karma dictates that someone apply equal force to my head against a wall.
You’re trying to conflate physics with ethics and morality and it doesn’t work.
More importantly, what in nature dictates that eating meat is bad karma? Seems to be a natural order of things, doesn’t it?
Redshirt
PsiFighter+37, my one hope for your wedding is you don’t get wasted until well, well after it’s over. Like a couple days later, something like that.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: Makes you think.
Yatsuno
@Redshirt: Uhh…what? Where did you get that notion?
Cassidy
@Yatsuno: Yup. The only times I really advocate eating meat over veggie is for people I know doing serious lifting. You just can’t provide the building blocks needed if you’re eating veggie. Other than that, though, I frequently encourage people to go veggie or back down to 2-3 nights a week for meat.
I’ll add that I’m of the belief that when you have a craving it’s your body’s way of telling you it needs something. In this particular instance, after exercising and eating veggie, if you’re craving meat then your body is saying it needs protein. So eating the meat is a short term fix, but you would need to re-evaluate your protein intake. In the long term, find a solution that works for you. I always pitched more oral sex, but the wife didn’t buy it.
PsiFighter37
@Redshirt: Hah…as noted above, it is an open bar. That said, my view on the wedding is that it’s really more for everyone else to get sloppy and trashy – I feel like the wedding, as much as they say it’s ‘your’ special day, is going to be more about making sure the right pictures are taken, the right things are laid out, the right music is played, etc. etc. In other words, a lot of party-planning stress.
Sometimes I wish we had just gotten the certificate. Spending money on some of this shit for the wedding seems stupidly egregious from a cost standpoint.
Redshirt
@Jeff Spender: Killing is karma, how could it not be? But we all live in karma, of course, not one of us immune. It’s a question of whether you think suffering is healthy, or not? Or some degree of suffering, like on a scale, IE my hankering for bacon is worth imprisoning an entire species of animals, killing them relentlessly, in a cruel, industrial fashion.
sparrow
@Yatsuno: Well, I think not eating meat is a pretty big step towards being a better steward of the planet (and possibly the karma thing, who knows). That said, I still eat it on occasion. But I can appreciate the idea that it would be better for me and the planet if I didn’t. And that’s not a small thing.
Jeff Spender
@Redshirt: You know what it makes me think?
It makes me think that if it wasn’t so obvious you were trolling and that I wasn’t bored, you’d make the argument not from some superstitious bullshit karmic stance, but from the more scientific and real approach of how we define intelligence, sentience, and the ethical dilemmas of the suffering of livestock.
But…alas, that’s not the kind of conversation we can have here, is it?
Cassidy
@Redshirt: 1) I’m picking in you over the karma thing. I shouldn’t do that. That’s our business. I don’t believe in the spiritual or divine and think its bull, but power to you.
2) Bold statement you can’t prove short of finding the body and examining stomach contents. Secondly, I don’t care.
3) Odds are he ate a diet consisting mostly of fish as he grew up in a fishing village.
Jeff Spender
@Redshirt: Prove to me that karma is a thing, and then we’ll talk. Otherwise you sound like a jackass who has nothing constructive to say.
So, what is karma, and how does it operate practically in the universe? Is it connected to some form of judgement in an afterlife, or is it related to some sort of existential multiplier that makes odds work for you, or against you?
PsiFighter37
@Cassidy: I thought he was an alcoholic / party rocker, what with turning water into wine and all.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Redshirt:
Then why did he serve everyone loaves and fishes?
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
I’ve just started getting the traditional bacon recommended by the LA Times’s food critic, and it’s amazing. I’ve long had a theory that industrialized versions of traditionally preserved foods are incredibly bland compared to ones that actually depend on salting, smoking, and fermentation for preservation. I’m amazed at how right that theory is, at least as applied to bacon. I’m getting set to test it on some of their ham next.
Cassidy
@PsiFighter37: It’s not about you. She’s been planning this since childhood. Suck it up, smile, stay sober for 24 hours.
Redshirt
@Jeff Spender: Sure we can. Lot’s of different viewpoints on this excellent blog. I’m pretty passionate about vegetarianism, as I feel it’s not only healthier than most (not all!) diets involving meat or fish, but also that it’s important to live your life in a manner that does not involve the widespread death and suffering of other lives.
Cassidy
@PsiFighter37: I can get behind that. My favorite religious “art” is Jesus Laughing. That’s the Jesus I would worship if I believed in that.
Redshirt
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Jesus didn’t eat the fishes though, right? Hey, if you’re gonna starve, or your kids are going hungry, and meat is all that’s available, go for it. But if you have a choice, if you have options, if you have the luxury of cooking for yourself, then evolve. The future is meat free. Get with it sooner rather than later.
Roger Moore
@Cassidy:
If you’re by yourself and you suddenly desire something, maybe. But watching or thinking about other people eating something and suddenly getting a craving for it yourself- which is what MomSense is talking about- is social, not nutritional.
Cassidy
@Roger Moore: Possibly. Depends on the persistence of the craving. Could be multiple things.
James E. Powell
@Redshirt:
I guess my all Kielbasa diet is the pathway to super health, given that meat is so healthy.
You need to make sure you are getting enough sauerkraut & pierogi – balance is important.
Jeff Spender
@Redshirt: Let’s talk about it from that perspective, and not karma.
If you keep the spiritual junk out, and you stick to something rational, you have a powerful argument. Suffering is something that we can measure, something which we all experience to some degree. We can relate to that. We can understand that animal intelligence is much different than we previously thought, and with the idea that animals have rudimentary abilities to reason and have their own systems of morals and ethics–it’s harder to eat meat and claim a moral high ground.
So from the human perspective, we have to balance our knowledge with our omnivorous nature. Eating meat is not objectively wrong for a variety of reasons. The suffering argument is the closest you’re going to get to making it objectively wrong.
I tend to reduce my meat intake as much as possible on that basis. One of my friends is an animal rights activist who never fails to inform me of all of the injustices.
Redshirt
@Jeff Spender:
Well, firstly, karma is physics. A rock hits a rock, each rock has their path re-directed. All energy is vibrating in the medium of the Universe, interacting with other energy, which is all expressions of the Big Bang. There is not action, just reaction. Karma is influencing the sphere of reaction around you in a positive (negative) manner, from the perspective of Life – which is a strange chemical reaction of the energy based Universe. Life translates karma into different forms, which when considered on the human scale, relates to “The Golden Rule”: Do unto others…
Roger Moore
@Redshirt:
I’d like some scriptural evidence for that, please. AFAIK, the only place in the Bible that discusses the healthiness of a vegetarian diet is Daniel 1:8-16. It doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about what Jesus ate, but we know he was at a wedding where they served fish.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@PsiFighter37:
Honestly, your priority list should be:
Really good photographer
Good food
Open bar
Everything else is optional. We went with a DJ over a live band but there are some really good bands out there if your heart is set on one.
Suffern ACE
@Jeff Spender: karma explains why an otherwise rational country like ours is going completely insane and can’t extract ourselves from involvement in wars in the Mid East. The monotheist enemies of Hinduism are all ruining each other and you want to prove karma? Kali on her return will release us from this trap, but it won’t be pretty.
Oh well, I don’t know if I buy it, but its as good as anything else that’s out there.
scav
I’m still laughing at the thought of a vegetarian jebus that introduced cannibalism into the meal that is central to his whole religion thing, binding the community together.
Whatever that poor jewish boy was, he’s certainly been the perfect mirror for everyone since to project their prejudices onto in order to gain legitimacy. 2000 years and counting.
MomSense
I eat meat in moderation but unfortunately my cholesterol is high anyway and I’ve cut out cream, butter, eggs, etc. My mom and dad both have the same problem. My mom chose the medication route and my dad chose the mostly vegetarian route. I don’t like the side effects or the expense of the medication so I’m going to try the vegetarian route. My dad’s cholesterol is fine now.
ETA All the meat we eat now is raised organically and locally on small farms.
James E. Powell
Serious question for an open thread: My wing-nut relatives are all stirred up about a report on 60 Minutes concerning the social security disability fund. Apparently, it’s being abused by completely healthy people whose unemployment benefits have run out. Also too, greedy lawyers. The fund is going broke. It’s all Obama’s fault.
Is there any truth to these claims or is this just the standard complaint that right-wingers have about any program that provides any assistance to people who are not them?
MikeJ
@Cassidy:
Nazareth is on a hilltop, and is in no way a fishing village. After he finished his internship with John, he moved to Capernaum, which was a fishing village.
Suffern ACE
@PsiFighter37: ummm no. I think you need to personally buck up and follow the wishes of her mother on the matter of how much drunkeness you yourself partake in. Can’t control your friends as you are generously offering free booze. But it will go better for you if you give your mother and her mother the wedding they want. The marriage is yours. The wedding is not.
Redshirt
@Roger Moore: How about some Scripture against it? Jesus was a dirty hippie, was He not? And doesn’t vegetarianism fit that profile? How could Jesus eat lamb?
Redshift
@efgoldman: If everything works perfectly, and the person putting it together really knows what they’re doing, it’s great. I can’t tell you the number of events I’ve been to where “I’ll just run it off my iPod” turned out really dreadfully; it stopped at inopportune times, the mp3’s were at wildly different volume levels, someone had to jump up to switch a song that really wasn’t going over well, etc. Putting together a mix like that is something that a lot of people think they have the skills to do (or don’t even realize it takes skill), but most don’t.
If you want to have dancing and modern music, have a DJ. And make sure they don’t have a microphone. If you just want to have music for atmosphere, have musicians.
Cassidy
@MomSense: Good choice. Think about protein supplementation post workout. The make them veggie/ vegan friendly.
MikeJ
@Redshirt:
Since the bible has him going to a seder, it’s hard to imagine him not eating lamb.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@PsiFighter37:
Also, too, spend a couple extra hundred bucks to get a “day of” coordinator to steer you guys around. Don’t depend on the venue’s coordinator because s/he will be busy directing the waiters, etc. Hire someone whose job it is to round people up for pictures, fix stains, track down the best man, find a safety pin, etc. It will save both of you a LOT of stress.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: There’s plenty of hippies in Maine.
Cassidy
@MikeJ: Thought he grew up in Galilee? Oh well.
Suffern ACE
@James E. Powell: this is a comicated issue. But yes, there are going to be people in ssdi who shouldn’t be. But…it’s not that simple. Social security disability is not simply determined by physical ability or no one would get it. Hell I could argue that a comatose man could make money as a medical experiment. A lot of these “lucky duckies” on disability will not have the education, work history, or physical ability to work and are unemployable. Ssa takes all of those into account.
Redshirt
@MikeJ: He probably just drank wine and snuck off to smoke a J. Man.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@James E. Powell:
The average duration of unemployment for people over 50 is 53 weeks (slightly over a year). With those odds, I’d probably be trying to get on disability, too, just to have some kind of income. Add in the people who were fired after an injury or illness, and the system gets overwhelmed.
MikeJ
@Cassidy:
Galilee is a province, Nazareth and Capernaum were towns in Galilee. If you were more than a mile or two from the shore of the sea of Galilee, you weren’t a fisherman. As for eating fish, they didn’t travel well at walking speed.
MikeJ
@Redshirt:
He turned water into wine
And if he wanted to
He could have turned wheat into marijuana
Or sugar into cocaine
Or vitamin pills into amphetamines
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUrqaJZH-04
Cassidy
@MikeJ: Heh. Cool. Learn something new everyday.
Keith G
Challenging day at work. Personnel issues. Plumbing fubar-ed by contractor doing city easement upgrades. I will get it sorted out tomorrow on what should have been a day off.
To the point of all this: To kick back, I picked up an unfamiliar brew –
Hop Devil Ale – Victory Brewing Company, an IPA from the Philly area.
Outstanding. A balanced collection of great flavors. Cheers.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: I go to the Hannafords, like everyone else. Except those monsters who buy groceries at the Wal Mart. FOOLS!
scav
@efgoldman: Well, many got around that by drying the hell out the buggers. Salt Cod shows up in many cuisines for a a reason. No idea if they did this in the Mediterranean. All I know there is they fermented a lot of it, at least in the garum belt.
Yatsuno
@sparrow: I agree with this, in fact I do eat at least one vegetarian meal a week. That has more to do with how we grow meat in the West as opposed to using more Earth-friendly methods. But from a nutritional standpoint, we are omnivores. This is true of all apes.
Redshift
@efgoldman: Then that’s important information to include when suggesting that course of action. If you have a couple of volunteer professionals or semi-professionals doing it, then yes, it will be cheap and turn out well. If you have a randomly selected bride or friend of a bride with an iPod doing it, all you can be sure of is that it will be cheap.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@MikeJ:
@efgoldman:
Scav beat me to it but, yes, pretty much every culture within 100 miles of a body of water that contained fish figured out how to preserve it to eat later.
Though they probably ate more lamb and mutton in Nazareth than they did fish. They might not have meat year-round like we do, but they definitely had seasonal access to it.
Cassidy
@Yatsuno: Don’t forget, during the zombie apocalypse scrounge and hoard dog kibble.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Probably 2/3 of my meals are meat-free.
ETA: Not out of any moral conviction (I eat veal) or specific health concerns. It just sort of works out that way. Cheese and milk, though, are kind of necessary.
Redshift
@Yatsuno: It’s certainly true that we can digest almost any kind of food. It’s also true that “wild” humans ate meat quite irregularly, and were adapted to survive on plants for long periods when hunting was unsuccessful. Our big problem now is that the things our bodies are evolved to crave (because they were nutritionally valuable but scarce) are available all the time, and the fact that we crave them frequently does not mean it is healthy for us to eat them that frequently. This is compounded by a food industry that manipulates those cravings to get us to buy, completely divorced from actual nutritional value.
Suffern ACE
@Redshirt:
Umm. He refers to himself as the good shepherd. He refers to sheep and goats all the time.
Mary G
@James E. Powell: I am on SS disability and I can say that I was urged to go on disability in 1983. I was told that I would never walk again by a doctor at Kaiser. I found another doctor (in those days you could change to good insurance at the company I worked for every November.)
That guy said not to go on disability if I ever wanted to be hired again. I didn’t want to as I couldn’t live on the money they pay. He got me good enough that I was able to work full time until 2001. I still didn’t want to file for disability because I was buying a house, so I rented it out and came to live with my mom and try to develop some Web skills so I could work at home. That didn’t work out, so I finally applied in 2004, selling my house.
I am so lucky that my mom lied her ass off to buy a house after my dad died in 1967. I wanted to rent an apartment near the library that was $140 a month, but she bought a little house for $28,500 with a mortgage of $132 a month.
I made pretty decent money when I worked, so I get a little more than $1800 a month. That sounds pretty good, but my supplemental and part D policies cost me about a third of that every month. So I have $1200 to live on. If I had to pay a mortgage or rent, I’d have to leave California, but my mom (who never let me forget it) bought this house, so I live where I could never afford to on my own.
So there is a population of people have been sticking in a job because they don’t want to go on disability, that are being forced into it because they lost the job and can’t get another one because older people are never hired because health insurance is too expensive for a company to pay for.
Is there fraud and abuse? Yes, and I wish the Democrats would acknowledge that and do a lot more enforcement than they do. But it is incredibly hard to get approved and many people end up dying waiting on Social Security to get their act together. The decisions are farmed out to the states, and the states where the highest percentage of people on Social Security are mostly deep red states.
Dodgers win! Boo-yah!
Bubblegum Tate
@Nicole:
As a DJ, I appreciate that you understand that!
I’m not a wedding DJ, though I have done a few weddings, and while weddings can be sort of tricky (3+ generations of people, all with fairly widely varying tastes and tolerances), I’ve found that the best system is to start off with Motown (because who doesn’t love Motown? Stupid people, that’s who), and once the olds are tired and off the dancefloor, you can start catering more directly to the younger crowd.
At any rate, if you hire a DJ, please do that DJ a favor and PROVIDE REAL GUIDANCE ON WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR! It drives me up the wall when people are vague or have no real input to give. You don’t have to provide a full song list, but some examples are much appreciated. Maybe a short list of songs you definitely want to hear, plus a few suggestions of other things that you would give a thumbs-up to. That’s all it takes; a good DJ will be able to take that and run with it. If you just leave it all up to the DJ and then end up not liking what said DJ plays, that’s on you.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Yep. I have to admit that I don’t hold up my end of the beer consumption requirement – I generally prefer wine and liquor.
@Bubblegum Tate:
Also, note if there is anything you just do not want to hear under any circumstances.
@Redshirt:
Because it’s tasty.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s the salt. As far as having a problem with an elevated LDL, my doctor has me on red yeast rice. It seems to have worked well and doesn’t have the liver side effects(my liver was compromised when I first started see this doctor).
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: someone has to drink those brandy old fashioneds. It’s practically a fruit drink.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: IIRC Wisconsin has the country’s highest per capita consumption of brandy. Hell, I am having a brandy right now as a nightcap.
ETA: Wisconsin and Brandy.
handy
@Bubblegum Tate:
At my wedding I told the DJ the type of music I wanted with just three simple if a bit well-worn suggestions: Bizarre Love Triangle, Heart of Glass, and Situation. She was able to take it from there, and everybody had a blast.
Mary G
OK, I found a site.
States with highest percentage of people on disability, in order:
Top 20:
West Virginia 15.6
Kentucky 14.6
Arkansas 13.5
Mississippi 13.2
Alabama 12.6
Oklahoma 12.6
Tennessee 12.4
Louisiana 11.9
Maine 11.7
South Carolina 11.3
New Mexico 11.2
Montana 11.0
Oregon 10.8
Missouri 10.6
North Carolina 10.4
Washington 10.4
Florida 10.3
Idaho 10.2
Michigan 10.1
Ohio 10.1
Alaska 10.1
Bottom 15 or so:
Arizona 9.6
Georgia 9.6
District of Columbia 9.6
Pennsylvania 9.5
Nevada 9.5
Delaware 9.4
New York 9.3
Rhode Island 9.3
Kansas 9.2
Texas 9.1
Virginia 9.1
New Hampshire 9.1
California 8.8
South Dakota 8.7
Colorado 8.6
Iowa 8.5
Maryland 8.4
Massachusetts 8.4
Utah 8.4
Wisconsin 8.3
North Dakota 8.3
Nebraska 8.2
Illinois 8.1
Connecticut 8.1
Minnesota 7.9
Hawaii 7.9
New Jersey 7.6
Not a straight red/blue state order, but very close. So wingnuts probably actually do know more people who are taking benefits without deserving them.
Redshirt
@Mary G: I knew Maine would be high on that list. A reddish state, far North.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): THIS, PSIFighter. You do NOT want to be the person who people go to asking questions about this or that. You will be quite busy enough.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
If there will be children 10 or under at the wedding, it can be surprisingly fun to have the Chicken Dance or the Hokey Pokey played because the adults can watch the kids do them. If it’s all adults, you can probably skip those and go straight to “The Time Warp” for your audience participation number.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): If you are in Wisconsin, you must have both the the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey or your marriage will not be recognized by the state.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: Tis true. As soon as a Dem is elected Governor here, Maine will be full on Obamacare. That we are not now is an outrage.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: No. Unless it is a German of Polish farmers’ wedding – in that case they are likely to have a polka band.. Otherwise, the Chicken Dance and Hokey Pokey are sufficient.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Mary G:
California is probably as low on that list as we are because we have a very strong worker’s comp system for people who get injured on the job. They not only pay all of your medical bills, you also get partial salary and can’t be fired while you recover. Funny how having worker protections helps prevent other parts of the system from getting overloaded!
joel hanes
@Cassidy:
stay sober for 24 hours
This is very good advice.
I really really really wish I had done this.
On a lighter note: there will be a lot of standing around while the bride is busy and you have not much to do. Deal with it by approaching your favored female relatives and asking them if your tie is straight. They will be charmed, your tie will prove to need adjusting, and they will adjust it. Win-win.
Mary G
@Mary G: @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Also, the cost of living there is lower, or at least housing, so some people may have to leave a bluer state to move to a red one when they are forced to go on disability.
Redshirt
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That’s why you should live on the CA side of the NV/AZ Border. All the poverty of the Southwest, with California welfare!
Bubblegum Tate
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, also very important information.
Bubblegum Tate
Sorry, double post for some reason.
handy
I always chuckle when I hear “I Will Survive” at a wedding. I mean, like really?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Redshirt:
Nah, I’ll stay here in the SFV with my neighbor Bill. We’re trying to convince my widowed mother to move here from Arizona but, knowing our luck, she’ll want to go to Lancaster instead of Ventura or Goleta.
pseudonymous in nc
@PsiFighter37:
DJ with clue. Best wedding music I experienced was a DJ who realised that the reception was made up of old people who liked classic lounge tunes, and ironic twentysomethings who were just fine dancing to classic lounge tunes.
The marriage itself didn’t last long, but the memory of the music does.
handy
The Dodger fans I have to deal with at work tomorrow are going to be insufferable. Le sigh.
mai naem
@Mary G: I am assuming W Va and Kentucky are up high because of coal mining??? I am thinking NM is up higher than it should be because of the Uranium mining?
I’ve worked with people on SSI. IMHO, some of this comes down to health insurance. I find it hard to believe that most regular people with options would want to settle for what is usually a crappy amount of SSI. Its the not being able to either get health insurance or not being able to find a job that offers health insurance or one that wants to hire you when you look expensive to insure. I had one woman who told me she knew her medicaid was the best insurance she was going to have – she just had to work through the system. She could have held some kind of non-physical phone heavy/computer heavy job but her medications were literally $650/mo.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@pseudonymous in nc:
As I’ve confessed before, G really wanted our first dance song to be “You Shook Me All Night Long,” but I chickened out. But the DJ made sure to play it later that night and a fun time was had by all.
SectionH
@PsiFighter37: Oh well, blossings on thee, lulu man! From Walt Kelly via me. Also too, you only get married for the first time once. From Mr S. He’s managed it for 3 decades…
Bestest!
pseudonymous in nc
@scav:
Jesus probably ate a lot of lamb chops, which most Americans don’t.
(Bought Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem yesterday; lots of vegetarian recipes, a good few meaty ones. It’s a lovely book, that treats food as a tie that binds the cultures of the Levant, not one that separates them.)
Suffern ACE
@Mary G: It is a function of education more than anything else. Education level is of the factors determining disability. If you look at the states where disability is highest now and it will be strongly correlated to high school graduation rates. Plus the types of jobs that people performed. If you have 10 years work experience in heavy but low skilled labor plus dropped out of school in the 9th grade, it is more likely that you will be eligible for disability than if you graduated from high school and worked as a secretary for ten years. There are probably a lot of drop outs in those regions. And the drop out rates there were probabably much higher 30 years ago when these folks currently in their 50s were in high school.
Mary G
@mai naem: This is definitely true. Two years after you get the disability, you get Medicare, which is the Holy Grail. I finally applied because even though California makes insurance companies sell people like me insurance, it was $700 a month with a 30% copay. I needed a knee replacement desperately and just couldn’t come up with the 30%, so I applied and waited it out for two years. With drug copays, I still pay more than $700 a month for healthcare, but I have the gold-plated supplement and pay nothing out of pocket for things like surgeries.
Tommy
@Linnaeus: She is a rock star. I hate I don’t think anybody like her will ever get confirmed for the court again. It seems to me that only way you get on the court if a liberal puts you there is not to have a view on anything..
fleeting expletive
I have to wonder. Why is Logo, the gay tv channel, so heavily censored? I was watching Margaret Cho, and with every other word bleeped out, it’s hard to follow. Why isn’t Logo on some HBO or whatever less censored cable station?
Groucho48
@Suffern ACE:
Definitely complicated! There are a few things going on. Disability applications do go up at times of high unemployment. Folks with debilitating but not completely incapacitating ailments are more likely to toss in the towel after being unable to find work . Especially if, as in the Bush Recession, a lot of the folks being laid off are in their late 40s to early 60s. The vast majority of them will never find a decent job again.
The rise of law firms specializing in getting folks on disability. They know the doctors to go to, the information that needs to be included in applications, and so on.
States, especially red states, are actually encouraging folks on unemployment to apply for disability as that means the state won’t pay, the Feds will. These states pay a commission to firms that get people off the state rolls and on to the Federal rolls.
Suffern ACE
@Mary G: Yes. When I was working with SSI applications, the point was to get people onto medicare more than the increased SSI benefit. Also, because the applicants did not currently have insurance, their medical histories were kind of scattered at best. Folks move around, don’t remember the clinic they went to to get some kind of treatment. Don’t remember which emergency room they went to at the time. And the SSA doctors were not known to be the most sympathetic medical professionals. But there was a lot of delayed treatment 25 years ago and that has not gotten any better. There is a reason why they law firms are involved in this mess (they get paid), but a lot of the applicants actually need help with a lot of basic steps in their applications and lawyers provide that assistance (at least after an appeal). SSA at the time was not exactly known for helping low functioning adults through the process.
Redshift
@fleeting expletive: It’s bleeped because it’s on basic cable, where anyone casual viewer can see it. You can only be HBO if you have the rights to or are producing compelling enough shows that people will pay extra for it up front, and Logo doesn’t. (Ms. Redshift watches Logo quite a bit, for example, but we never would have discovered it if it was a premium channel.)
Anne Laurie
@handy:
If there aren’t at least one or two guests bitterly, drunkenly recalling The One Who Got Away, you haven’t invited enough people.
When the Bitter Guests in question include the parents of the bride/groom, well…
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, cheese is essential to happiness. Mine, specifically. I am ovo-lacto vegetarian, and I have cut back on dairy, but…..FUCK. Veganism just makes me SAAAAAAD as a long-term lifestyle choice.
I submit that cannolis are the perfect food, because they combine cheese, chocolate, sugar, and fried stuff.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@MomSense:
There is only minimal connection between animal fat intake and serum cholesterol.
see here
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Redshirt:
Actually backed by science. See above. (Framingham heart)
StringOnAStick
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Thanks for posting that. My cholesterol levels improved by a HUGE amount when I quit eating grains and increased my meat consumption. I also no longer buy the heart lipid hypothesis, as is true for an increasing number of medical researchers; inflammation is the key heart/stroke problem, but statins don’t treat inflammation. They are certainly hugely profitable for big pharma though, so you won’t see them not being pushed hard anytime soon.