Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Everybody saw this coming.

The willow is too close to the house.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

When I was faster i was always behind.

You are here: Home / Music / Sunday Morning Open Thread: Winter Solstice

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75Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    Apart from tending the bonfires, what’s on the agenda for this shortest day?

    I’m apparently going to make the most of this shortest day and stay up for 36 hours. Whoo-hoo! Sleepover!
    First one that falls asleep gets a pen!s drawn on their face in sharpie marker!

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    Steeplejack, you’ve got a pen!s! And Omnes, you’ve got a pen!s! And eemom, you’ve got a pen!s!
    Everyone gets a pen!s!

  3. 3.

    magurakurin

    what was so bad about this year as compared to say 1914 or 1944 or 1864? Personally, it was a fine year, I surfed in three different continents, saw my broken finger heal nicely, no one close to me died, weed shops opened in Washington state, gay marriage marched onward, China and the US decided to at least admit that global climate change is a problem, relations with Cuba changed radically, World War III didn’t start in the Ukraine, the Kurds hung on and saved Kobani and turned the tide on the Daesh assholes. Sure, bad shit happened, it always does. But as years go, I don’t think deserves the slag it got in this post.

  4. 4.

    Tommy

    @magurakurin: Same here. If I could wrap up this year and tie it in a bow, I’d ask to do that again. Not perfect, but still a nice year. We finished strong. One of my best clients is a Cuban American.His parents are
    “boat” people.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Correct. My own year wasn’t so bad either, but then my point was only that whether the year was good or bad depends entirely on one’s personal perspective.

  10. 10.

    raven

    A compilation of video footage captured from the University of Aberdeen’s Hadal-Lander in the Mariana Trench from 5000m to 10,545 m deep. The large fish inhabit the shallower depth (5000 to 6500m) are rat-tails, cusk eels and eel pouts. At the mid depths (6500 to 8000m) are the supergiant amphipods and the small pink snailfish. The fragile snailfish at 8145m is now the deepest living fish. At depth greater than 8500m, only large swarms of small scavenging amphipods are visible. The footage was taken during the HADES-M cruise on Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Research Vessel ‘Falkor’.

  11. 11.

    Keith G

    @magurakurin: Indeed. Not a bad year on the individual or even societal level. Comparatively speaking, probably near the middle of the pack.

    There are always fucked up things happening…..the difference is that now we have the internet which allows us to lose most, if not all, perspective.

    Humans seem to get off (at least a bit) on the charge of emotion that comes which a discharge of outrage. It’s probably due to something that was once quite evolutionary advantageous. Now that we have our hands on a keyboard and not a flint tipped spear, maybe less so.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:Actually, there is nothing artificial about a “year” at all. It is defined as the time it takes a planet to orbit it’s sun. Hence every planet’s year is necessarily different. And now I am just being a pedantic pain in the ass, aren’t I? :-)

    Well, it is the Braggin’ Rights game? Isn’t it? Both Mizzou and SLU are in for long years I fear.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    Weird day ahead. The ex called yesterday to ask me to lunch today. I’m going because I forgive him for being a cheating asshole (actually forgave him long ago, he’s not a horrible person, just selfish) and because I’m curious as to why.

    Then some grocery shopping and laundry. Hopefully, the Steelers make it three for three for my sports teams this weekend. Penguins and Pitt basketball won and a bonus was the PSU ladies winning another national championship in volleyball. GO STEELERS!

  15. 15.

    Mustang Bobby

    For those of you waiting with bated breath for news about the opening night of the New Theatre’s Miami 1-Acts Festival and my performance in my own work along with two other really professional actors, it went very well. After a tiny bit of nerves in the first minute, it flowed and we hit the marks, got lots of laughs, including on lines we didn’t expect, and lots of applause and cheers at the end. Not bad for my first time on stage in Miami in forty years. It was a life-enriching experience.

    We have one more performance this afternoon, and then I can relax for two weeks, then start getting ready for the Miami One-Minute Play Festival in January.

  16. 16.

    raven

    @geg6: I saw my ex last year when she was in town. It had been about 6 years and we were cool. I couldn’t believe she married another Nam vet though!

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Amazing that anything can live at those pressures. I find it curious that creatures that live in the eternal blackness that exists at those depths retain their eyes, while so many creatures in caves lose theirs entirely.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    In celebration of the season, boston. com has unusual xmas decorations. Nothing says xmas like a santa toilet seat cover. link

  23. 23.

    MattF

    Shortest day, but the sun doesn’t start rising earlier for about another two weeks. Time to hibernate.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I am a little behind the times, but I just now read about this: How much is white privilege worth? Ask the woman crowdfunding it

    Now there’s Yaya M. The mysterious Ms M is attempting to acquire some white privilege because, according to her Go Fund Me mission statement: “Layered oppressions have affected my ability to access my slice of the American Pie™.”

    In return for helping her to reach her goal of $135,000, she offers some of the “neat perks” of being black. For $5: “I will agree to be the black friend you are referencing when you tell people, ‘I’m not racist, I have a black friend’; for $65: “You may touch my hair, enabling you to potentially absorb some of my magical afro power”; for $75, you get a mixtape of urban music; for $100, her grandmother’s recipe for collard greens (“When you cook it, you may also claim that yours is better than hers”); and for the summit of $200: “I will dress like a cop and harass you on the street for what seems like no reason. Earn some steet cred amongst your friends!”

    Made me laugh.

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    Not many of us going to regret seeing the back of this one…

    Statements like this always make me wince a little for a different reason than those stated above: people say this every year, and I always imagine next year is probably going to be even worse.

  27. 27.

    Raven

    Ah, Virna Lisi died.Did anyone but me see The 25th Hour? “Storyline

    During World War Two, Johann Moritz, a Romanian Jewish peasant, whose pretty wife is lusted after by the village gendarme,is denounced,arrested and sent to a concentration camp.In the camp, the camp commander mistakes him for a new recruit, a volunteer to the SS and he is drafted into the SS.Ironically, after the war he is detained by the Allied authorities for his wartime involvement with the SS.”

  28. 28.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: But where to mark the end/beginning of the year is completely arbitrary. It currently happens to be just a little after the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice, but hasn’t always been.

  29. 29.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Mustang Bobby: Excellent! Also excellent that’s there’s something else right around the corner. A writer’s a writer only as long as s/he’s writing.

    And Annie Laurie, I love that Annie Lennox song. I think you may have posted it last year too? Wherever it was, I know I listened to it then too.

  31. 31.

    geg6

    @raven:

    Yeah, I expect it to go fine. Just weird he calls out of the blue. Like I said, he’s not a bad person at all. We had 18 years together and at least 16 of them were good. The last 2 years? I have no idea why I stuck around other than all the years I’d put into the guy. It’s been nine years now and I’m with a much better man, so I don’t have any more hard feelings. Well, maybe a few for the financial situation in which he left me when he finally owned up to being a lying cheat and asked me to move out. But whatever.

  34. 34.

    ThresherK

    @Matt McIrvin: Still puzzling for any Aussie popsters singing songs about “holiday” and “Christmas” and “snow”. Hasn’t someone written one for them, celebrating Christmas at about peak daylight?

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Nothing arbitrary about starting it at the winter solstice, just the starting of January 10 days later (I blame Pope Gregory’s astronomers, but then I blame those guys for dam near everything). Kind of like X-mas and Hanukkah. Does anyone really believe that the occurrence of these religious celebrations at or about the time of the winter solstice is a coincidence? In the case of X-mas, it was common for the early Christian church to co-opt local Gods and Holidays, and the solstice, in all pagan religions I have ever read of, was always paramount. Is it any surprise the Easter occurs in the Spring? The rising from the dead Jesus neatly collating with the rising from the dead and rapidly greening planet all around us?

    The fact that so many of these things are centered on the Northern hemisphere events is due to the Euro-centric point of view being imposed on the planet.

  39. 39.

    satby

    I just haven’t had any holiday spirit this year. Sent off my small gifts to my far away family, made cookies and treats for the neighbors, and will wrap the small ones for my nearby son and his girlfriend today, though I have no idea when I’ll see them because he’s working on our usual family exchange day, Christmas eve.
    I guess I’m a bit blue because to me the holiday is more enjoyable sharing with friends and family, and since my last disastrous relationship caused a majority of friends to drop me, and one of the last ones decided to take off with the BF, my social circle is quite shrunken. I’m working on making new friends, but there’s no replacement for friends you’ve had since high school.

  42. 42.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @satby: You have grown children and you relatively recently lost friends from high school? Wow. That is tough.

    JPL is right. Come visit on BJ.

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    @satby: On the other hand, while the shared history is nice, “we went to the same high school,” is not that big a basis, perhaps?

    I have only two friends leftover from high school, (and it helped they married each other,) but I count myself fortunate in that. It’s like marrying your junior high sweetheart; great if it works, but it so rarely works. We grow and become different people and sometimes it’s okay that relationships fall away.

    Because we can always make more. :)

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MattF: I had no idea old Ebeneezer Scrooge was a Puritan who was save by the proselytizing Ghosts of X-mas Past, Present, and Future. The things I learn here.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: Yeah, I don’t have a single friend from school now, tho I do still have 3 from those times (different schools). We rarely see each other tho as our lives have diverged so much.

    @satby: I will echo the others.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    @WereBear:

    ometimes it’s okay that relationships fall away.

    Exactly, and do those relationships endure out of habit or because they’re true friendships?

  49. 49.

    satby

    @WereBear: Not just HS friends, in fact we barely knew each other then. Just a circle of friends that developed soon after HS and stayed for 40 years, I expected that it was for life. Friends more like family.

    But it was probably the universe pushing me in another direction. Even knowing what I know now about the outcome, I’d probably do it again.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: I was just looking into why it was that the beginning of the new year was sometimes celebrated in January and sometimes in March, up to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (which wasn’t until 1752 in English-speaking countries).

    Turns out the ambiguity goes all the way back to the Romans. At one point early on they had a ten-month calendar which ran from March to December (hence the number-names of the last few months), and the rest of the year was basically “screw it, it’s winter, who cares”. When they invented January and February, there was some sort of civil/religious split as to whether they were at the beginning or the end of the year, and it kept flipping back and forth until the early modern era.

    I’d also had a vague idea that there was a time when the Roman calendar was more regular than it is now, but no. It was always incredibly screwed up.

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    @satby: Ouch! I hadn’t realized just how many years you had together.

    But there’s another whole lifetime ahead of you that might be better shaped to suit the person you are now.

    If I were Dr. Who, I’d be on my fifth incarnation by now, my life has changed so markedly at each new phase. It’s rare that I drag along more than one or two friends from one phase to the next.

    But those that do make the shift tend to be keepers.

  54. 54.

    WereBear

    For all those who might feel socially awkward, and who could use a bit of help in making new friends, I offer a recent, and addictive, discovery:

    The Captain Awkward Archives

    She’s a Superhero of relationship advice.

    And this seems like the perfect juncture to add that I love all my true friends on Balloon Juice! I treasure the kind words and great advice and mutual appreciation of pet adoration.

    May the rest of the year not be sucky for all of us!

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: …And I actually greatly admire Pope Gregory’s guys; the system they put in place wasn’t perfect, but it was a good sight better than what had existed before (which in turn was enormously better than what had existed before Julius Caesar).

    I think January 1 was never exactly the winter solstice; when the Julian calendar was established, the solstice was Dec. 25, which was why Saturnalia/Christmas was then. The Gregorian adjustment didn’t quite put it back there.

  57. 57.

    PaulW

    I finished and self-published a Christmas estory – Welcome to Christmas in Florida – on Kindle and Nook. The hardest part was finding an artist to help make the cover (alligator with a Santa hat)!

  61. 61.

    Mike E

    I won’t begrudge anyone having a good year, no matter when it happens…bad shit going down is the hallmark of the human condition, so good news is to be cherished.

    I managed security for our local entertainment facility with 3(!) events going on simultaneously and had no fatalities, injuries, arrests or hard feelings (for very long, anyway). A coordinator I had a run in with even told me she was glad I was there! Now, if they would only hire me fulltime…

    I’ll see my daughter on Tues, and my 3 eldest nieces Fri. No complaints.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @PaulW:

    Just downloaded it! The artist did a great job, and I look forward to reading the story later today. Congratulations!

    In the meantime, though, I’m off with some young friends to see the Bolshoi’s Nutcracker, preceded by brunch with their family.

  63. 63.

    cmm

    I’m in the “good riddance to 2014” camp. Other than making our big move from a house to an RV (which is still stationary til I GTFO of my current job) I have been treading water all year. Someone who has been a dear friend (of the What Would [NAME] Do variety) for 20 years died somewhat suddenly in August, followed by a former co-worker eating his gun in spectacular fashion 2 weeks later. Work sucks and continues to suck; I have 20 months to go before I can retire on partial pension (and am blessed that that is an option) but it seems endless and I’m not sure I can last that long. And Ferguson blew up the week my friend died and all those issues have had me in knots ever since.

    2014 can fuck right the fuck off as far as I’m concerned.

    Also, I was out sick for a solid week with the head cold crud that has been around and after a week back at work, it seems to be making a command performance. And I can’t be out sick this week.

    On the plus side, a friend just reached out to me and offered me a place to keep my voluminous crafting supplies and do some work on the cards I like to make (and he likes to sell) and I am feeling very grateful and blessed for that because I haven’t been able to do any crafting since we made the RV move.

  64. 64.

    cmm

    I like the way the killing of a police officer in Tarpon Springs FL this morning is being reported as “ANOTHER police officer killed” like there is some connection to what happened in NY. From what I can tell it’s the garden variety bullshit that kills dozens of officers every year, and doesn’t make the national headlines. That’s the stuff we go to work thinking about on normal days, and trying to prepare to fight against. This shit where someone decides to randomly execute you with no chance of response or resistance is a whole different level and frankly terrifying.

    And yes, I am well aware of how that sounds compared with what people of color are up against with (some) police every day. That’s part of what has had me racked up all year.

  65. 65.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @PaulW: Got it! Or I will as soon as I turn the wireless connection on.

    I see you’re a librarian. A friend of mine recently became one–got the degree in Florida and took a job at a public library in Kentucky. She was just telling me she gets two weeks vacation plus 5 holidays, but she doesn’t get 2 of the holidays this year because they fall on Sunday and she doesn’t work Sundays. She gets Christmas Day off but actually has to work both NY Eve and NY Day.

    As someone used to an academic calendar, I’m horrified.

  67. 67.

    satby

    @cmm: Hang in there. This is a sucky time to be a cop, especially one who believes in serving the public the right way. As the daughter of a cop, I know that the worry about getting killed on the job is real, for you and your family. That other people have to worry about being killed for random reasons doesn’t diminish your reasons.

    How great would it be if somehow we could get this toxic environment dialed down and made safer for everyone.

  70. 70.

    cmm

    Thanks @satby. I also think the point is not made nearly often enough. I, and most fellow officers worth a damn, are also terrified of killing someone by accident because we thought a cell phone or a pill bottle or a toy gun was the real thing. Frankly, that scares me more than being killed in the line of duty because it’s something I would have to live with for the rest of my life. I don’t want to take anyone’s life, but I will to protect myself or someone else, if I don’t have any other option. Unfortunately, you don’t get a lot of time to dither about other options when the moment comes.

  73. 73.

    Gin & Tonic

    Knowing how popular Friedman is around here, I hate to quote him for truth, but this one is a keeper:

    Along the way, Putin lied to the world and deluded himself. His big lie is that the popular toppling of the corrupt government of Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev was just a Western plot to bring Ukraine into NATO. In Putin’s spook-defined world, no one has agency — except the Central Intelligence Agency (or K.G.B.). It is inconceivable to him that a critical mass of Ukrainians might have looked over at Poland and envied how well it had done since freeing itself from the Kremlin’s orbit and joining the European Union — that they might have then said to themselves, “We want that”— and that to get it they might have taken to the streets and overthrown Putin’s ally in Kiev, demanding a less corrupt, more transparent, democratic government.

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