(Non Sequitur via GoComics.com)
.
Be of moderate cheer, for there are glad tidings from Florida’s state capital:
A Nativity scene, a Festivus pole and a chair holding fake pasta with eyeballs and an accompanying “provHerb” from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have been allowed to be shown as displays at the Florida Capitol…
… and the Festivus pole is made of PBR beer cans:
… Stevens made his first version of the Festivus pole, which he calls V 1.0 (he’s in the IT business), from 23 empty Pabst cans, measuring nearly 8 feet. He said it would have been 24 cans, a full case, but “a production error” led one of his elves to mistakenly discard a can that had been drunk…
Stevens has gotten the seal of approval from Dan O’Keefe, the Seinfeld writer of the Festivus episode, whose father created the holiday and whose family celebrated it while he grew up (at random times of the year). In an interview with a Mother Jones blogger last week, O’Keefe said Pabst, coincidentally, was his father’s favorite beer, but his father’s version of the holiday had no pole, just “weird decorations and weird French ’60s music.” The Festivus pole, he said, was a creation of the Seinfeld writers’ room…
“Why? For the sheer stupidity of it,” Stevens told me this week. He said his goal isn’t to mock Christmas or any religious holiday, but to protest what he sees as the inappropriate melding of church and state. Even though he’s atheist, he says he’s no Grinch: He gives out gifts to friends and family, has an aluminum tree in his home and plans on donating the proceeds of an eBay auction of his rotunda Festivus pole to Women in Distress, his preferred charity.
Wisconsin’s Capital also has a Festivus pole, among other symbols of the season:
… “The rotunda is getting very cluttered,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. “But if a devotional nativity display is allowed, then there must be ‘room at the inn’ for all points of view, including irreverency and free thought.”
The foundation, which represents atheists and agnostics, has a “Winter Solstice Nativity” display in the Capitol. The scene features Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Mark Twain as the three wise men, the Statue of Liberty and an astronaut as angels and an African American girl baby doll to represent that “humankind was birthed in Africa.”…
***********
As an animist, I am very much in favor of public polytheism. Since the Airing of Grievances is pretty much a 24/7/365 tradition on this blog, what else is on the agenda today?
Baud
A part of me wants the ACLU to sue for the obvious violation of church and state here.
Jeff Spender
Libertarianism is dumb.
Don’t be a dumb. :D
Can’t sleep. That’s my agenda. Trees coated with ice and snow. Hear a creeking, cracking noise, like a glacier falling apart. Realize that the trees are tearing themselves apart from the weight. Front yard littered with the fallen: branches, limbs…one whole unfortunate pine tree.
Yay Michigan.
TheMightyTrowel
Working from home for the next ten days because I’m an atheist and University security have alarmed my building. The bastards.
Suffern ACE
I suppose I should’ve checked here first, but I bought my partner a kindle fire 8.9 HDX. Did I make a mistake?
raven
Thinking about taking the long way to Lynchburg up through Franklin, Asheville, Johnson City and across. It looks like that might avoid the heavy rain that’s going to last all day in Charlotte and Greensboro.
raven
@Suffern ACE: @Suffern ACE: Here is the CNET review.
n the current pantheon of high-end tablets, I’d put the 8.9 right up there with the iPad Air. While it lacks the premium feel of Apple’s latest large tablet, they’re pretty much a match performance-wise. Also, Amazon’s tablet starts at $120 cheaper, and increases its value as storage configurations increase — you can get a 64GB Wi-Fi-only HDX 8.9 for $479 versus $699 for a 64GB iPad Air. As for software features, if you consider apps alone, Apple has that on lockdown with the most and best apps of any tablet OS. However, taking into account the entire media ecosystem, Amazon is second to none.
raven
Oh Joy, Joe and Mika are in their xmas jammies.
Abo gato
I made jalapeño jelly, dill pickles and bread & butter pickles this weekend. Going to give them away to people at work today and tomorrow. Then, YaY! I’m off till January 6th. Really looking forward to not going to work.
Suffern ACE
@raven: are they drinking hot cocoa? Is she manly enough?
raven
@Suffern ACE: It doesn’t look like the normal Starbucks. They also think what Duck head said was just fine, put sort of crassly , but no big deal.
Hal
All at once I’m sick of this Duck Dynasty story, but also kind of sad over the whole thing. Clearly homophobic and hateful people hiding behind their bibles, or for me far more supremely annoying, a complete misunderstanding of the first amendment. Garnering huge public support showing that the LGTB community has a long way to go before even basic “that’s racist!” type logic gets regularly applied to obvious hatred and homophobia.
Someone like John Stewart should be able to see that, but sometimes he’s just so into his both sides mode I guess the contrarian in him could not resist. Sorry John, but when you’re keeping company with Bristol Palin and Camille Paglia, you might want to reconsider.
raven
@Hal: They showed a clip of Huckabee saying that Duck Heads position is the same as Obama’s when he was with McCain at the Saddleback Church.
Baud
@raven:
Obama said blacks were happier under Jim Crow?
Betty Cracker
@raven: You should time it so that you can stop at the Dillard House for lunch.
Suffern ACE
@raven: I’m trying to figure out where the outcry is? We’ve been here it seems like a 1/2 dozen times since Carrie Prejean. And it’s always the same. If we use the Dog the Bounty hunter as an example, or Paula Deen, or chick-fil-a, the object of the left’s scorn becomes popular for awhile, more poplar than before, actually. They eventually get to be on TV again. Outside of GLAAD, who was even complaining enough to get him syslended.
raven
@Baud: No, he didn’t believe in Gay Marriage on biblical grounds.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Since it’s only an hour away we probably won’t be able to. Side note, my first shirt in VN was named Otis Dillard and he was from Franklin. I’ve tried to find him or his family with no luck.
raven
Joe is raging because Ryan said retirees benefits can’t take over the defense budget. Ryan defends it and, I hate to say it, is correct.
“All this reform does is make a small adjustment for those younger retirees. If they retire before age 62, the annual increase in their retired pay will be 1% less than the inflation rate. In other words, their benefits will grow every year — just at a slower rate. And when the retiree hits 62, DOD will recalculate the retired pay so that it will be where it would have been if he or she had received the full inflation adjustment every year since he or she retired.”
JPL
@Baud: A friend watched some of the Sunday morning shows and mentioned the racial aspect to the story was covered. Of course, the most important issue of the day is religious persecution.
@raven: I tried to stream the show and only lasted a few minutes. Joe’s ego is the size of a watermelon.
Baud
@raven:
Is that all the Duck Dynasty guy said? I don’t care enough to follow it closely. I just remember the Jim Crow comment.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Everything Jesus said about homosexuality:
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Everything Jesus said about Duck Dynasty:
.
.
.
Jesus was wise.
Mustang Bobby
I’m all for the Festivus pole and honoring the FSM at our state capitol up in Tallahassee, but this won’t be a truly open-minded country until we make Frodo’s Birthday a federal holiday. After all, he saved the world from the evils of Mordor.
Oh, Joe Scarborough, STFU about public education. You’re shitting the bed and you’re embarrassing yourself.
Hal
@raven:
I think the Huckster is projecting. I don’t recall Obama comparing homosexuality to murder. It’s funny how Obama’s old, since deeply changed position on gay marriage is always construed to be the same as these right wing bigots.
Poopyman
@Mustang Bobby: Wikipedia:
That’s his intimate knowledge of public ed.
Betty Cracker
@raven: My sister and I had to go to Asheville for a conference several years ago, and since we love Dillard House and hadn’t been in a few years, we timed it so we could stop and have lunch there. We left N FL before dawn, so we should have had plenty of time.
Well, the interstate was snarled, and we got off to go the scenic route, and the next thing we knew, we were WAY behind schedule, but we refused to stop for lunch because we had our hearts set on the Dillard House. By the time we got there, it was supper time, and we were so ravenous we ate the relish and apple condiments and they had to bring us more!
Mustang Bobby
@Poopyman: What’s ironic is that in his home state, specifically here in Miami-Dade County, the public schools have improved remarkably over the last four years. Whereas we once had many F-rated schools, we now have none. And we did it without laying off any full-time teachers and actually giving them raises.
Full disclosure: I work for Miami-Dade schools. So I know something about them.
raven
@Betty Cracker: We’re sitting here trying to figure out if we should eat the Lynchburg hotel and drive tomorrow.
raven
dupe
Betty Cracker
@raven: It sure is a nasty looking front hanging right over your route.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: You’re going to eat the hotel? I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.
Rosalita
True but we look forward to having an actual day dedicated to it…internet traditions and all that
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah. Isn’t that a little hard on the stomach?
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Jeff Spender:
I’m by the Detroit Zoo and we’ve had no ice. This may be the pocket of the state that escaped the ice storm by staying a degree or two above freezing.
Both of my parents (near Lansing) and my relatives in Grand Rapids and Muskegon are without power.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Woke up at 6:00 am ready to head out to work and discovered we’re on shutdown until 1/2. I didn’t expect that. This is what happens when you spend most of your time (far) away from the office and ignore emails from management.
So I may get a chance to finish a magazine article project. That would delight the editors, who want it in the can by 1/1 (their idea, not mine). I just got the project invention to run yesterday and it’s… sub-optimal. Needs refinement.
AnnieJo
From the Wisconsin Department of Administration Capitol Events page:
“A citizen will sponsor a Festivus display from Sunday, December 1, 2013 through Tuesday, December 31, 2013 on the first floor Capitol Rotunda. There will be a ceremony on Monday, December 23, 2013 from noon to 1 PM on the first floor Capitol Rotunda.”
My family plans to attend. I am looking forward to the airing of the grievances, though I think the feats of strength may have had to be downplayed due to liability insurance complications.
Sherparick
I am aggrieved that the right wing is constantly aggrieved when one of them displays in public that he or she is an asshole and they are called on it.
I am aggrieved that current MSM meme is 2013 was a bad year for Obama, not so much because Healthcare 1.0 rollout was very buggy, but primarily he did not show he was a real manly man by not bombing the hell out of Syria. Even as the economy revived, the stock market set records, unemployment fell (although because of austerity it did not fall fast enough), nor even take note that their obsession, “The Deficit,” had fallen by almost a trillion dollars from its recession peak in FY 2010 (this last point may be why The Village and Galtian Overlords are really sad since it takes away the principal justification for gutting Social Security and Medicare.)
I am aggrieved at all the assholes in the country who have drunk the anti-vaccination Kool-aid and as a result thousands are now getting sick, and hundreds are dying, from contagious diseases such as Chicken pox, Measles, Pertussis, etc. that had pretty much disappeared for 40 years, but because we have become an Idiocracy, they are staging a come back.
Well, that should start some airing of grievances.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Grievance heard at work: “Why can’t I just wish them Merry Christmas and they wish me Happy Ramadan or whatever? Why all the political correctness?”
Well, among other things maybe their ancestors were mostly wiped out in a Crusade and they’re not over that yet.
Matt McIrvin
TPM claims the ACA has put the Senate in danger:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obamacare-woes-loosen-dems-hold-on-key-senate-races
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Click-bait. TPM does it a lot.
C.V. Danes
Funny how irreverency and free thought are linked together in this statement, as if free thought is irreverent.
WereBear
Happy Festivus, every one!
We have reached the slushy stage of thaw from the Ice Emergency, which is good for the trees, yet we are going to be down to 8 this evening, which means whatever we got by then, will stay that way.
Fortunately, we are on a major highway which they have cleared off and is safe to drive on, as needed.
Off this week! Playing with the Chromecast I put in Mr WereBear’s stocking. (What? We open gifts on the Solstice!) Thanks to all ya’ll, we are trying out a free month of Netflix.
They got Breaking Bad. I’m so there.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Matt McIrvin:
Michael Tomasky is cautiously optimistic. At the least, he’s saying that the GOP’s expectation that the ACA website rollout debacle will harm the Dems in 14/16 is optimistic on their part. At best he’s saying that people will have seen that more affordable insurance for more people is good and that will be to the Dems’ advantage.
This all depends on the electorate’s attention span/memory and how long the MSM keeps pushing the idea that a rough website rollout means the whole program has problems.
As far as the Senate being in danger, there’s no way to know from this distance.
Steeplejack (tablet)
I woke up with Johnny Mathis’s “It’s Not for Me to Say” still running through my head. It started yesterday. Dunno where I picked it up. That’s a grievance right there.
Violet
@WereBear: Free month of Netflix? How?
geg6
My FB feed has been infested with vermin. Meaning the “both sides do it” and “why can’t we all get along” and “it’s wrong to be opinionated” crowd. Why must you be so adamant, they ask. Why are you so sure of yourself? Why must you say things that make others uncomfortable?
What’s really funny is that they keep telling me that I, a known atheist, should be nicer to people due it being the Christmas season. WTF? Fuck Christmas!, I say. And then they all get outraged and tell me that I don’t respect others. LOL! Not an ounce of self-awareness among them.
WereBear
@Violet: Get a free month just for signing up at the website!
Netflix.com
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: I try, I really try not to insult other people’s religions. What’s to be gained by needlessly pissing people off? But every morning I wake up to news of another Christian being oppressed and how I am the true oppressor by insisting they have no right to oppress and it just pisses the hell out of me.
It’s getting harder and harder to not just simply say, “Fwck all you all.”
Cervantes
@Sherparick: Idiocracy
Kakistocracy.
magurakurin
@geg6: my facebook page is utterly purged and free of anyone who objects to any of my rantings in any way. It is a little bubble of safety. Occasionally my rantings trickle out through a friend of a friend somehow, but those who object can’t get to me. And then I post something totally off the wall on my friends page and that’s the end of that. I know nothing of the facebook arguments people speak of. You don’t like what I have to say…fuck off, you’re gone. I don’t engage I delete.
as you can imagine I have very, very few facebook friends. 23 I believe. It’s a happy place.
bemused
I can’t stop thinking about a tragic local pet story. A family brought their 9 wk old Golden Retriever puppy to a doggy daycare. An hr and a half later they were notified their puppy was dead killed by an older dog. The puppies and older dogs were in separate enclosures but somehow separation structure was breached by an older dog. The owner and staff didn’t know which dog killed the puppy.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Yet it was Scarborough who probably influenced Phil Griffin to get rid of Martin Bashir.
Chyron HR
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Obvious response: “Because you guys pitch a fit whenever anybody wishes you anything other than ‘Merry Christmas’. That’s the whole problem.”
Season to taste with obscenities.
Soonergrunt
Oklahoma’s response to various groups wanting to place their religious and non-religious monuments next to the 10 commandments was to pass a law in emergency session banning any further monuments on the capitol grounds.
Well, at least the taxpayers won’t be on the hook for too much money, because the lawsuits won’t take long to adjudicate.
Patricia Kayden
@Sherparick: Yeah, I was surprised that Cilizza wrote in the Washington Post that 2013 was a horrible year for President Obama. That is not true. The economy is improving, unemployment is going down and the healthcare law has kicked into gear.
Why is this not a horrible year for Republicans, given the $26 billion shutdown, which failed to achieve its goal of overturning the ACA? Plus the huge loss in Virginia where the Dems won the three highest offices. Plus DeBlasio’s big win in NYC.
magurakurin
@Matt McIrvin:
and their assessment of that is based on….nothing. It is now week 12 of the single largest change to the health care system ever. To say it is still in its infancy is an understatement. The troubles of the website are basically a thing of the past, despite what is still being reported. The signups are increasing at a huge rate..especially in the states that have a government and citizens who want this change…ie. California. Anyone who thinks that by next summer the ACA is going to be some giant failure is the same idiot who was convinced the polls were skewed in the 2012 election.
Over at KOS, and the site over there has greatly improved as of late, one cat is doing a great job of tracking the signups. He has a spread sheet on line. The data is from the federal government and it is enrollments. As of now there are over 5 million people now enrolled in either Medicaid or a private plan. And almost 1,5 million are in a private plan. And another person on KOS made the suggestion that the number of newly insured is actually closer to 8.5 million because of the 3 million or so who are on their parents plan as a result of the law. Those numbers are harder to track.
This is in week 12. The signups will continue as the real deadline is in March. The news of the ACA’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Chyron HR:
Jimmy John’s Subs is stickering all of their sandwich wraps with a big MERRY CHRISTMAS! label now.
As an atheist I couldn’t help reading the ‘FK U if you don’t agree’ subtext from that ‘winger clown.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@magurakurin:
They talked to political consultants, for whom a party in danger of losing seats means money in the bank. Of course the consultants will overplay the risk.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: I’ve got a Chromecast in my stocking too! That’s one of the advantages of being The Real Santa — you get to put stuff you really want in your stocking instead of socks and hotel soaps.
Enjoy Breaking Bad. I think it’s one of the best series ever produced, edging out The Sopranos because it didn’t have a bad season, and the ending was better.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: The mainstream media picks its narrative and sticks with it, no matter what. By any measure this was a calamitous year for the GOP, but that’s off message.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Congrats! Yes, I really surprised Mr WereBear… he didn’t know what it was :)
Steeplejack
@WereBear, @Betty Cracker:
I bought a Chromecast for some old friends for their birthdays (both in early November). They have a fairly elaborate “media setup,” but it’s six or eight years old, so no smart TV or smart DVD player. They use a low-end Android tablet to control it (you have to use Chrome as the browser to control it, right?) and couldn’t be happier. It has given their system a big facelift.
Amir Khalid
In case anyone is curious:
I got a couple of pleasant surprises at the hospital today.
(1) Doctor told me my heart function has improved from 20% a couple of years ago, to 30% now. Still not great in absolute terms, but it’s movement in the right direction.
(2) Thanks to (1) the doctor has taken me off Plavix, which pretty much halves my monthly cost for medications.
Yay Malaysian healthcare!
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: There’s an Apple and Android app, so if they have an iPhone or iPad or an Android phone, they could use that as a control too.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: That is great news! Take care of that ticker. This place would devolve into Lord of the Flies without you! ;-)
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, I know at least one of them has an Android phone, but the tablet is there for “Let me check that for you” and “I don’t want to get on the computer” browsing, so they use that instead.
I’m glad they like it. I was a little nervous. They are both tech-savvy—he installs and supports computer systems for small businesses, she’s a photographer/videographer—but they’re both in their mid-60s and have a few touches of get-off-my-lawnism.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Good news! Any reason for the improvement, e.g., clean living and right thinking, or is it just dumb luck?
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
I think it’s the bracing intellectual stimulation from reading Balloon Juice comment threads.
handsmile
@Amir Khalid:
How wonderful for you! Such “surprises” are the best gift one can receive at any time of the year.
And Liverpool’s resurgence can’t help but be contributing as well to your improved cardiac health.
Cervantes
@C.V. Danes: as if free thought is irreverent.
Well, I suppose one could argue that revering things is incompatible with free thought … It depends on what one means by “revere.”
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Ha! You overplayed it there. A little subtlety, please.
Cassidy
@WereBear: Keep the Netflix. Get Hulu +. You’ll never watch cable again. The only thing missing is some of the series from show time, etc.
Today’s agenda? Finishing my first double for the week. My Christmas gift to the kids is 48 hours of OT plus 34 hours of holiday pay to pay for the Disney trip.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Hal:
By both asshats like Huck, and by our progressive betters here and elsewhere.
Deep dishonesty is not limited to those on the right.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Matt McIrvin:
Because all the red state senators who voted for Obamacare might get voted out of office?
Wait, what?
ellie
Well I am deciding what days I will be working, if any, this week and next besides today. I have to shop for groceries: DH wants meatloaf for Christmas dinner. We don’t have family in our part of the country so it will be just him and I for the holidays. One of these years I will get to Baja for Christmas like I have always wanted.
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: It’s a Festivus Miracle!
This makes me very happy. I give some credit to Bianca, because:
Cats have healing powers
WereBear
I’m there, but Mr WereBear is an old Washington DC hand: he’s lost without his CSPANS and his MSNBC. But he’s gradually making the transition, and he’s about 80% there.
The Internet on the TV (for when he’s stuck in bed with his chronic illness) should close the gap for him.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Amir Khalid:
Don’t you get generic clopidogrel over there? It’s MUCH cheaper than the brand name.
Didn’t know you have a heart condition. 30% isn’t bad. You able to get around okay?
Cassidy
@WereBear: We priced it out and, for us, we got the cheapest cable we could get to get good internet, xbox live, and multiple streaming services through that (free) on top of Netflix and Hulu +. It came out cheaper and more on demand than a comparable cable package with HD. It works for us.
kindness
I don’t feel like complaining/airing grievences. I just want to get through the day so I can be home the next two.
Matt McIrvin
@magurakurin:
I’m not sure that actually matters. Whether or not the ACA actually is a failure, at this point it may be forever and always a “failure” in the popular political imagination, with no way of unscrambling the egg.
After all, most voters aren’t obviously affected one way or the other (especially if they’re on Medicare already), so for them it’s all secondhand stories. If somebody tells them it’s a horrible failure they may have no easy way to judge that statement.
Another Holocene Human
@magurakurin: Kos unleashed the banhammer on the crazies. I used to go to KOS Labor and ignore everything else but the everything else is much improved at this point. Even the comments sections (although they’re still pretty time-wasty).
Another Holocene Human
@Ultraviolet Thunder: A clerk told me to have a “blessed” Christmas which is even worse than a regular one. Had it not been for the line I would have started arguing. I mean, seriously? Churchy codewords? And isn’t that what bums say after you give ’em something if they think you’re a sucker?
Amir Khalid
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
At U of Malaya Medical Centre, it seems they prefer branded Plavix to generic clopidogrel. I’m also on Lipitor rather than atorvastatin, although I understand that’s a newer generic.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Here’s the thing, though — unlike so many wingnut obsessions, ACA is not imaginary. It’s a real thing, that actually exists. They can’t just wish it away like they would a monster under the bed. They’ll need to get actual votes by actual legislators to overturn it and get an actual president to sign that overturn. The absolute earliest that could happen would be 2017. Do you really see the anti-ACA momentum carrying through for another three years given how many people are going to have either better health insurance or Medicaid, or know someone who does?
ETA: If you’re imagining a congressional override of Obama’s veto of their bill overturning PPACA, you will need 2/3rds of BOTH the House and Senate to go along with that, so mathematically you would need 290 Republicans in the House and 66 Republicans in the Senate. Do you really see that kind of massive sweep for Republicans in 2014?
chopper
the pole is aluminum for its ‘high strength-to-weight ratio’. a stack of cans don’t provide that, silly.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Glad to hear your heart has improved. Pretty important thing, that heart.
Hope you can continue to improve your health.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: At this point, I’m not imagining any veto overrides… more that the Republicans might actually be able to ride the general Obama-as-failed-President vibe to control of Congress in 2014 and the Presidency in 2016, and then repeal stuff at their leisure, or at least muck it up a lot.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Without a 2/3rds majority in both houses of Congress, there’s not much they can do to muck things up with new laws or regulations, because they’ll never get past the president’s veto. Best case scenario for them in that case is that they keep doing what they’re doing now, which is passing a bunch of symbolic “repeal” votes that never go anywhere.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: Congratulations!
And may the steady improvement continue!
billB
The ACA will come right and be a big win for Dems. Those who fight it while the citizens see it improve their lives will STFU quick when they see the polling.
Oh, and GO DUCKS beat teaxas!