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Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

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Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

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The National Guard is not Batman.

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This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Sunday Morning Open Thread

Sunday Morning Open Thread

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I will be super-busy all day because it is my birthday, and we’re having lots of people over, plus debuting our home-brewed beer for public consumption later this afternoon. To illustrate the passage of time, here’s a picture of my great-grandmother and her cousin. It was taken almost 100 years ago:

Great-Grandma and Cousin

I knew my great-grandma well; she lived long enough to become a very old lady. Her sons fought in World War II, and eventually she saw (to her dismay) her grandchildren become hippies and Vietnam War protesters and (to her further disapproval) her great-grandchildren wear Doc Martens and spiky hair-dos. We called her “Big Grandma.”

I never saw Big Grandma smile like she’s smiling in the photo, though — or at all as far as I remember. She was very stern. If I live as long as she did, or even if not, I hope to remain less flinty.

Please feel free to discuss whatever. Open thread!

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  9. 9.

    Cervantes

    “Happy Birthday!” and all that sort of thing, to be sure — but how exactly does the picture illustrate the passage of time?

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    Happy birthday, Betty. Stay not flinty.

    Great pic. Faces look so contemporary. Am glad we can dress more comfortably today.

  13. 13.

    mai naem mobile

    Happy Birthday Ms.Cracker. I love really old pictures. Famous people.and.not famous people. Michael Beschloss posts some really cool old pics in his twitter feed.

  16. 16.

    Schlemazel

    Hippo birdy two ewes, hippo birdy two ewes hippo birdy dear BC, hippo birdy two ewes!

    hope you have a great day

  17. 17.

    mai naem mobile

    My niece is going to Beijing on a school trip. My sis and niece went to a Q and A with the teachers going along. They were talking about being very careful with electronics and petty theft. Assume all your phones/laptops etc.are hacked. Its got my sister kind of concerned.

  19. 19.

    Linda Featheringill

    Happy Birthday!

    My paternal grandmother [Mandy] was considered a terror by most of the family but when she visited with us for a month when I was about 15 years old, we bonded. I thought the lady had guts and backbone.

    Anyway, she didn’t have much money but left me enough money in her will to pay for a year’s tuition in college, away from home. She paved the way to my intellectual freedom.

    Flinty? Well, my nickname around here is The Curmudgeon. But I think I just have guts and backbone. :-)

    Mandy would have been proud.

    And many more birthdays for Betty!

  21. 21.

    aimai

    Happy Birthday, Betty Cracker! You are the only reason I’d ever want to visit Florida. What an amazing picture that is. We have a bunch of similar pictures from that period of my great grandparents and my husband’s great grandparents. No one ever smiled in those pictures and we call my husband’s side “the axe murderers” because they all look so very creepy. In one enormous portrait of the entire family on my side there is only one person smiling, my great aunt who, as a young child and as an old woman, had an intense sense of the ridiculous but she was also suicedal and had a tough life.

  27. 27.

    Svensker

    I bet they ARE laughing about the matching outfits and on how her hat perches on top of her Gibson Girl coif.

    Happy birthday!

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Happy birthday, Betty! You bring such joy and original, cutting-edge snark to these environs. Live forever, o Cracker!

    As for my Sunday morning, I’m at the theatre for the Royal Opera’s production of “Andrea Chénier” starring two of my favourite singers, Jonas Kaufmann and Eva Maria Westbroek. I’ve heard “Chénier” but have never seen it, so this should be a real treat! But getting up early and driving 30 miles in a thick fog was not.

  32. 32.

    Mike G

    People look so stern in 19th century photographs because they required holding still for several seconds of long camera exposure with the materials of the time. Photographers instructed their subjects to keep a neutral face because it’s easier for people to consciously hold such an expression for several seconds.
    As a result we see our ancestors as dour and humorless, while they may not really have been like this in their lives.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    Happy Birthday, Betty. Best wishes for the future.

    Have fun with your friends and hope every one likes the beer.

  36. 36.

    mainmata

    Happy Birthday, Betty. Your posts are too funny and interesting to becoming from a flinty person. Hope the beer is hoppily delish.

  37. 37.

    Jim

    What a great picture! I’m glad you got to know her, even if the generational/culture gap made things tough at times. We all, of course, have similar problems with the kids-who-won’t-get-off-our-lawns, but somehow the country manages to struggle through. Likely due to folks like your great-grandparents.

  38. 38.

    BGinCHI

    Happy birthday, Betty.

    You’re the best thing from FL since….OK, you’re the best thing from FL ever.

  40. 40.

    JCT

    Happy Birthday – hopefully not one of those with a zero on the end, they are annoying.

    Funny coincidence, we just received a package of family photos of a similar vintage – but no smiles as folks very rarely smiled in photos back then!

  45. 45.

    gogol's wife

    Happy Birthday!

    Meanwhile, this is the fourth weekend in a row that either my Saturday or Sunday (or both) New York Times couldn’t be delivered because of weather. It’s getting tedious. At least I got the puzzles yesterday.

  46. 46.

    ThresherK

    Best wishes from the northeast, where there’s actual melting outside.

    The photo is fascinating. I can’t put my finger on what seems so different about it, except all the photos from my family’s ages-ago, involving grownups posing for a camera, really don’t have the smiles.

  47. 47.

    MattF

    Happy Birthday! I have a very old photo of two of my great-grandparents. They were the ones who came here, decided they didn’t like it, and went back. All of their children stayed here, though.

    @Elizabelle Y’know, that’s an interesting point. I recall, some years ago, I saw a book of portraits of people who were living in 19th century insane asylums. What struck me was how modern their faces looked.

  49. 49.

    donnah

    Happy Birthday, Betty! I hope you have a wonderful day!

    I have a bookmark that says, “I get more cleaning done in the ten minutes before someone comes over than I do in a week”. That’s how I roll!

    I hope the beer is terrific, too.

  55. 55.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Happy Birthday Betty Cracker (the unflinty great granddaughter of Big Grandma). And many more.

  58. 58.

    Tenar Darell

    Boston problems….
    1) I broke my shovel this morning!
    2) My arms at killing me!
    3) I bought two new shovels at lunch.
    4) I wished for my driveway to melt faster, so I can try to chip off the slushy coat before it freezes solid tonight.
    5) I really really hope I didn’t jinx the roof just now.

  60. 60.

    Mack

    Let me add to the chorus of well wishes on your birthday…but I think being flinty would be just fine. Cool word.

  61. 61.

    Anne Laurie

    Happy birthday & many happy returns, BettyC!

    In my experience, the older one gets, the more one’s core personality shows through the social training & the mannerisms of a particular era. People with a good sense of humor have a head start in that department, so your eventual descendents should have pretty good memories of you.

  66. 66.

    Tehanu

    Happy birthday, Betty! Hope your day is fun.

    Your great-grandma looks a bit like my mom, actually — kind of a Southern type, my mom having been from Texas with some Missouri and Louisiana ancestry thrown in.

  72. 72.

    JustRuss

    I’m sure your great-grandchildren to be are looking forward to New and Improved Big Grandma…now with less flint!

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