Wise words from Mr. Charles P. Pierce:
… We are a little lost here in America. Too many of us have tuned out, and too many of us are deeply tuned in to the wrong things. Our eccentricities have curdled into crochets. Our love for the strange and deeply weird has soured into a devotion to the mean and deeply angry. Our renegade national soul has given itself up to petty outlawry. We have tailored the principles of our founding documents — flawed though their authors were — into cheap camouflage for our boring traditional grudges. None of these things are good things. But none of those things is permanent, either. Imagination always has been the way out — a faith in that which seems impossible, a trust that not every mystery is a murder mystery, and that not every mysterious creature is a monster. Imagination is the way out — a belief that safety is not necessarily the primary (or even the secondary) goal of democratic citizenship, and that a self-governing political commonwealth does not always come with a lifetime guarantee. Yes, we are a little lost here in America, but we can find our way, and the best way that we can find is the one that seems like the least secure, the darkest trail, the one with the long, sweeping bend in the road that leads god knows where. We must trust what we can imagine, and we must trust that what we can imagine is the product of what is the best of us. And, whether we imagine it or not, it’s going to happen anyway…
***********
What’s on the agenda for the start of the new year?
OzarkHillbilly
The view from the coast must be different than the one from these Ozark hills and hollers.
henqiguai
Hmmm. Lookin’ like it’s just you, me, and Anne Laurie this morning. I think Anne Laurie *never* sleeps and I crashed (as per usual) at 21:00 and up at 05:00. What’s your excuse? Oh, and happy new solar orbit.
Mustang Bobby
Good morning, and what a way to start the New Year: Morning Joe is doing a retrospective on Richard Nixon with guest Pat Buchanan.
I’m switching over to the Weather Channel.
OzarkHillbilly
@henqiguai: I went to bed at 8:30, up at my usual 3:30. Even got some good sleep. Life is good. My wife just passed thru, went back to bed.
@Mustang Bobby: The weather is kinda exciting in the Southwest.
Phylllis
Happy New Year y’all. Up early reading and enjoying the quiet. Reckon I’ll go put on a pot of coffee and see if the paper’s in the box.
Highway Rob
Here’s hoping the innumerable pet-expert juicers can provide this mostly-lurker a shot or two of confidence. My pup, a 5-year-old, 40-lb mix whom I swear my infant daughter has called a “Go Dog” after Seuss’s Go, Dog. Go!, is at the emergency vet overnight for IV and monitoring due to a possible intestinal obstruction. How often is a possible obstruction not an obstruction, and how often will an obstruction resolve non-surgically?
We’ve dealt with the surgery once before when she was 9 months old (oddly, also on New Year’s), and I’m not looking forward to that again. Any advice appreciated.
raven
@Highway Rob: Xrays should tell the tale, no?
OzarkHillbilly
@Highway Rob: My expertise begins and ends with feeding them. Sorry.
raven
We went to a couple of gatherings and split at 11. The Pitbull gig in Miami wasn’t as bad as the other stupid New Years shows so we watched that in the rack and went light out right after midnight. Now we have a nice party that, for the first time in years, I can stay at longer than an hour because the Dawgs aren’t in one of the 1pm Bowl Games! I smoked a bunch of cobia yesterday and made a big batch of turkey tasso!
Mustang Bobby
@Highway Rob: Here’s hoping that this too shall pass, so to speak, with a minimum of pain and expense.
Highway Rob
@raven: You’d think, but apparently as often as not the foreign matter doesn’t show up clearly on x-ray. For example, a baby’s sock, which the doc kept hinting might be the culprit here. They’ll take more pictures if she doesn’t improve on IV to see if there’s any more circumstantial evidence.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Looking at the 4th of July parade on Okinawa in 46 reminded me that my wife’s dad was also on occupation duty their as a Seebee at that time.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: I spent yesterday afternoon at my friends Bob and Ken’s house prepping food for their open house this afternoon. I made several dozen miniature Reuben sandwiches and and the same number of miniature cucumber sandwiches. They are now safely stored in my refrigerator since they ran out of room in theirs. In addition, my duty this afternoon will be to be the iceman who delivereth.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: It looked like the weather was pretty good there since all the tv people at Bayfront were scantily clad.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Yeah, it’s 65 F now with a dense fog advisory, which I think is the manifestation of a combination of hangovers and gunsmoke.
Peale
So I take it that Pierce watched Kathy Griffin dye Andersen Cooper’s hair last night. That set me off, too.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Don’t know if it was among the stuff in that batch, but little bro found a letter from a POW asking the old man for help with a charge of theft. Evidently Pops helped because there was a Thank You note and a “Good Bye” poem for when Pop returned. Really beautiful stuff. Don’t know if he wrote it or “stole” it, but it obviously meant a lot to my old man.
SRW1
@Mustang Bobby:
Well, now you won’t ever know whether RN was a crook or not.
NotMax
And so it goes…
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Found it.
Little Bro has looked to see if he could find Sakata’s family but the language barrier is pretty high. My niece (now living in Japan) might be able to help. Not sure if the family would want to know or not. I suppose they would.
NotMax
Calendars all changed.
One perquisite of being an alumnus of one of the colleges I attended is receiving a free wall calendar every year.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: That is so cool! I didn’t have time to read the docs yet so I hadn’t read that. My old man had a Japanese sign that he got from a bunker on Suluan Island on what was the REAL first landing on the Phillipines. Also, a buddy gave me some books that included a propaganda leaflet like your dad had from Korea. He thought it was from WW2 but I could see it was from Korea. It had a number on it and when I googled it we found a site that has tons of those.
NotMax
Attendance at the New Year’s gathering was positively anemic. 7 people total.
Got leftovers up the yin-yang.
OzarkHillbilly
How do you spell misogyny? The E-C-O-N-O-M-I-S-T.
The Economist’s annual list of the most influential economists is out. Except, this year, something seems to be missing: the most powerful economist in America.
Janet Yellen, who was sworn in as the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve in February, did not make it on to the list. Sadly, neither did any other female economists.
Baud
Happy new year, morning thread gang. Some new years news for Booman followers.
satby
@Baud: Oh no! That’s my second stop after B-J every morning. But as long as Martin keeps writing somewhere I guess I can deal.
Not a late night person, so missed a chance to say hi to Higgs when he popped in last night too. Good to see him, however briefly.
And hope you’re still on the mend Baud!
Baud
@satby:
Thank you. I didn’t improve as much as I’d hoped to this morning, but I feel a little better each day. Please let WaterGirl know I’m sorry I missed her pizza. It sounded great.
Betty Cracker
Poor hubby had to pop in at work (but just briefly), so I’m waiting for him to get home. I’m going to cook a giant breakfast consisting of freshly grated and seasoned hash browns topped by sausage and sautéed peppers from the garden topped by eggs over easy plus toast. Then we’ll go for a long walk with the dogs and come home and flop on the couch to watch the games. I’ll put up a bowl game thread if no one else does. I should have taken tomorrow off, but I didn’t, damn it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Happy New Year, hope the crud is making it’s exit.
ETA: My weather station sez it’s 33.1 on my front porch. Brrrrr.
debbie
Reminds me of National Lampoon’s Desiderata: “And whether you believe it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back.”
Pretty appropriate for 2014.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Shit blowin all over at the Rose Bowl yesterday!
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: They had a bit of a dust devil out in one of the parking lots where they had some tents for the game. They said 4 people suffered minor injuries as well as some new cars.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Happy New Year. Did I read somewhere that there was snow on your area?
greennotGreen
@Highway Rob: @Highway Rob: I lost a dog to intestinal obstruction because the vet took a wait and see attitude (which I later found out was a wait and don’t pay attention attitude. Obviously, I don’t go to that vet anymore.) If the dog doesn’t show extremely rapid improvement I would opt for surgery.
MomSense
Had an intense pick up sticks tournament with my youngest. Then we watched some of the celebrations before going to bed. The older kids were out. One went to a party and the other went with friends to some kind of pub crawl.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
On Monday I tried calling the woman in LaCrosse that I interviewed with back in November. Whoever answered the phone said that I had the wrong number. I checked the call log and I dialed the right number so now I have no idea what is going on.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s pretty far down the dial. Is it still FM there?
WereBear
It’s snowing here, but not much. Cold, though. 14.
But I’m not going anywhere!
So short of sleep this past week I feel asleep early, slept through the fireworks!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Not down here in the flatlands, the high desert, the mountains and the “inland empire”(not really an empire, more known for it’s meth consumption) got some.
greennotGreen
Unfortunately, it’s another extremely grey day here, typical for this time of year, but I’m more productive when it’s sunny out. (I think my metabolism is partly photosynthetic.) I have to finish painting the ceiling in the guest house I’m renovating, and it’s hard to do and not fun, so sunshine would have been helpful. OTOH, it’ll be finished today, and then I can start putting up trim.
Happy New Year to all BJ denizens, and I hope your day is brighter than it is here – and if not, turn on the lights!
p.a.
Happy New Year everyone. Now get off my lawn!
Steeplejack
It’s only 21° in my little corner of NoVA this morning, but I don’t need to go out. Had coffee and an apple turnover while I did the crosswords, now thinking about something more substantial. Or maybe I’ll wait and have a big lunch.
Maybe I will need to go out at some point. I have had an extremely tight, sore spot in my shoulder for the last couple of weeks that is really harshing me in everyday activities and making it hard to sleep, and I forgot to get Aleve or something when I was at the store yesterday. Would like to not toss and turn like I did last night.
JPL
It’s warmed up to 32! New’s Year Day is the time to pack up all the decorations until next year. It’s definitely more fun putting them out rather than taking them down.
Happy New Year’s !
WaterGirl
@Highway Rob: I don’t know a lot about this, but obstructions can be terribly serious, and yes, you can wait too long.
My experience with my dog was scary but it ended well with no surgery. I remember the x-rays, trying to guess what that might be. My vet kept my dog at his office while we waited to see if whatever it was would pass. He took a second x-ray maybe 2 hours later to see if there was any movement, and there was. Whatever it was was moving along, which was a good sign. My dog passed whatever it was before the end of the workday, so he got to come home, no surgery.
I would think the most important thing would be to make sure your vet has a plan. As in, we’ll take another x-ray in x number of hours, and if it hasn’t moved this is what we’ll do. And the plan needs to have a pretty short timeframe. If your vet can’t outline his plan for you or you’re not satisfied with the plan, then I would take your guy to a different vet.
Do you have a vet school nearby? Or an emergency vet clinic? You might want to check out those options if you have them.
In my world, it’s all about doing your absolute best for your dog and having no regrets. Not everyone is as lucky as we were with Tucker’s obstruction. Since there are no crystal balls… How would you feel if you pushed for surgery and then it turned out to be unnecessary? How would you feel if you waited to long and you lost your pet?
For what it’s worth, I would get a second opinion. Now.
satby
Happy New Year again to those I missed last night. The wind chill was 5 above zero when I got up to let the dogs out, but the sun is out and the temperature is on the rise… to 30.
@greennotGreen: I have noticed that as I get older I’m more affected by a mild SAD, grey days make it hard for me to be motivated but on sunny days, even if they’re cold, I have much more energy.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I saw that this morning and I have to admit that it made me kinda sad. I wonder if the new iteration, whatever it is, will be more music and family related and less political.
Sorry you missed my pizza invitation! I’m sure that my pizza and spicy ginger ale would have cured what ails you. :-)
WaterGirl
It’s a happy new year for me already. No puppy accidents two days in a row, and he didn’t get me up at 4:30 to go out. I got to sleep until 7:30!
Now all I need is Betty Cracker’s breakfast – sadly, I have no breakfast food in the house.
Happy New Year!
El Caganer
Getting ready to get the train from Philly to Pittsburgh, where an Allegheny General surgical team is awaiting the opportunity to introduce itself to my pulmonary artery.
PaulW
Personally, I gotta keep working on a NaNo novel and maybe some more short stories for epublishing.
I’m also focusing on taking James David Barber’s Presidential traits analysis (A-P, P-P, A-N, P-N) and applying them to the 2016 primary candidates (sucks to be you, Jeb) to determine which ones would be best to vote for and which ones to fear making the White House.
Happy New Year, peeps!
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
That breakfast sounds wonderful.
I am going to do pancakes with a side of ham
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: New’s Year Day is the time to pack up all the decorations until next year.
While Julian-calendar folks have a week to go until Christmas.
Howard Beale IV
Just went to get my script filled; new Rx plan cut the number of pills in half.
Happy New Year indeed.
lurker dean
@satby: I missed hbm’s pop-in as well! Wishing a great 2015 to all the juicers!