Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

In after Baud. Damn.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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Late Late Early Early

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I was sleeping like a baby until this giant storm blew through, with driving rain and howling wind and the distant rumble of thunder rolling in off the Gulf of Mexico:

 Now I’m wide awake. And I just realized it’s the seventh birthday of my beloved Daisy Mayhem, the lovely buff-colored creature on the right side of this poorly lit photo:

 She’s among the smartest dogs I’ve ever met. You can tell she knows exactly what you’re saying — if it’s something of interest to her.

One of the signs of her intelligence is that she takes little interest in the conversations of humans unless the topic is of direct concern to her, such as food or road trips. She doesn’t give a flying fuck for talk about politics or religion.

Anyway, sweet Daisy gets a bacon cake this evening in honor of her birthday. That will make her happy.

Open thread!

 

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    Interesting, this: two university students have invented a sub-woofer fire extinguisher. Just point it at the flames. No chemicals, no mess.

    ETA: Is there a story behind Daisy’s name? She doesn’t look much like a bringer of mayhem.

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    @Amir Khalid: What a great idea! I hope they patent it and make a mint.

    RE: The dog — she may not look it, but she IS a bringer of mayhem. She’s also extraordinarily springy for a critter of her size. When she gets really excited (like when the mister comes home, even if he’s only been gone 10 minutes), she expresses it by jumping straight up into the air, about three feet off the ground.

  5. 5.

    Bobby Thomson

    Waiting for my flight to go throw Dad into Puget Sound. It’ll be nice to see my sisters.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I had not seen it — how cute! Another smart boxer.

    @Bobby Thomson: Safe travels. My sister and I scattered some of our mom’s ashes in a river that is special to us last fall on our mom’s birthday (the first without her). It’s a bittersweet thing.

  8. 8.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Amir Khalid: Wow, that is awesome. And I feel compelled to highlight that they are inventors of color. I’m glad the media focused on them and wrote about them the way they would talk about white students, rather than erasing them and talking about their white advisor or something. (“Inventors are white men. Find some white guy.”)

    I’ve found to my sorrow that most white Americans don’t know how many things we take for granted were invented by Black people.

  9. 9.

    Another Holocene Human

    Recent study of four TV stations showed that while half of the crimes in their metro were committed by Blacks, they featured Black perps in 80% of their crime stories. This is how it’s done, people.

  10. 10.

    raven

    Well, I screwed up the DVR and didn’t get the UK-WVU game but I see the EER player running his mouth about how they were going to beat the Cats wasn’t too swuft.

  13. 13.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I can’t wait until I’m done training in at this second post. Stupid scheduler asked me to train on first shift Wednesday instead of third shift. He let me know this at 9am on Tuesday, three hours after I’d gotten off a 16 hour shift. He even mentioned it and I really wanted to ask him what made him think I wouldn’t be asleep when he called.

    So I’m off in two hours and I’ll just be working sane hours, when that evil, bright object in the sky that makes you squint and gives you cancer is nowhere to be found.

  14. 14.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @raven: I was a big fan of Dean Smith, to the extent that I followed basketball at all. And I’ll still root for UNC over Duke.

  16. 16.

    SectionH

    @raven: well, I’m not a big fan of any team sports, but I kind of wake up and “rah rah” for UK every few years.

    Mr S invented our introduction to Certain People (forts spans): “Hi, we’re from Kentucky, and we’re So Glad for the separation of Church and State, because otherwise, we’d have to go to a basketball game every Saturday night.”

    Kept them away, every time.

    Tonight was just embarrassing. My son – UK grad – texted me “there’s a Mercy Rule in soccer, we need one here.”

    It wasn’t fun, never mind funny.

  18. 18.

    raven

    @SectionH: I don’t like anything about UK so there is that. I’ve been to Rupp once, when my Illini were totally screwed against Kentucky in what would be the last regional final played on a home team’s court.

  22. 22.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: No, just this morning.

    The wife’s spawn and I climbed Mount Hollywood yesterday. Damn it was hot, but a dry heat. A bit hazy but really nice views. We could see Catalina and I think Mt. San Jacinto. Afterwards we visited the Griffith Observatory, the kid had never been and I hadn’t been since they refurbished it.

  29. 29.

    SectionH

    @raven: I’ve never been to a game at Rupp. I’m kind of glad they still have to play there, because Big Jerk Donors wanted to cause a new venue to happen so they could have Fancy Boxes, but UK and Lexington said NO.

    I’m sorry if the Illini got screwed – my mother and aunts all were Illinois teachers, and I have some Very fond memories of Urpaign.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: Yeah, that odious prick Stacy McCain was all over that angle yesterday. He was yammering about how decadent Europeans are literally dying at the hands of the PC police, who prevent private businesses from making sensible employment decisions such as excluding anyone with a history of depression from the workforce. It seemed an odd argument coming from a guy who is clearly nuttier than a squirrel turd.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    who prevent private businesses from making sensible employment decisions such as excluding anyone with a history of depression from the workforce

    We need to change the laws so we can get these people out of the workforce and start calling them moochers.

  35. 35.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: The climb yesterday was about 3 miles round trip and a 300′ elevation change.

    ETA: It was about 90 degrees with little shade.

  36. 36.

    ThresherK

    What’s going on with me? If my ears get any better they’ll attach electrodes to my head, pop me on a Coast Guard cutter, and use me to find submarines.

    Every place I go now seems to have background music turned up to 100dB. People who think they’re having private conversations 50 feet away have no idea how loud they’re speaking. (PS We really need a word for this. What’s the opposite of “eavesdropping”?)

    I didn’t go to many of those rock concerts in my youth. But do I have to do some of that now, without my Flents earplugs, in order to get some wear and tear to make the world bearable?

    (ETA: #WhitePeopleProblems)

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    That’s why I asked. I had assumed you were old and fat from your comments here, and I didn’t see anyone matching that description in the picture.

  51. 51.

    Cervantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    I hope they patent it and make a mint.

    Well, a quarter mint each, tops:

    50% of Net Revenue from a successfully commercialized invention is distributed to [George] Mason [University] Inventors.

  52. 52.

    Mustang Bobby

    I thought I would enjoy a week of sleeping in while on spring break, but my internal clock kept waking me up at my usual time, so, like anyone my age, I got up, wandered around the house, checked the intertubes, and went back to bed. Then some peacock in heat out in the neighbor’s yard started hollering for some nookie. Now I’m awake.

    Edited to clarify that the peacock was not calling me personally for nookie. I don’t date straight no matter their plumage.

  59. 59.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @ThresherK: Restaurant cranks up crappy 80s-90s music (to appeal to hip young crowd?) customers talk louder to be heard, other customers talk even louder so THEY can be heard.

    I feel sorry for people on first dates, having to yell at each other over dinner.

  60. 60.

    bemused

    Annie said it’s officially Silly Season with Gohmert hinting a prez run. Silly isn’t strong enough to characterize the clown car crowd, imo. The word silly is a quite mild, pleasant, way of describing of something that makes you smile happily in amusement. I suggest instead using the Batty Season or cuckoo, psycho, witless, harebrained, simpleminded, crackpot…..

  64. 64.

    Germy Shoemangler

    “Be normal, and the crowd will accept you. Be deranged, and they will make you their leader.” – Gohmert

  70. 70.

    Germy Shoemangler

    True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. ~ KURT VONNEGUT

  75. 75.

    Germy Shoemangler

    “Big Wall Street banks are so upset with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said.”

    “Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party’s tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.”

  77. 77.

    ThresherK

    @Germy Shoemangler: If it were only restaurants. It’s everywhere. All grocery / big box / specialty stores, coffee shops, quik bite places. Chain or not.

    And it’s not the music is crappy. Much of it I like, and it’s also varied (as my tastes in it can be). It’s simply played at the volume which suggests I’m here to dance, or listen to someone’s record collection and I’m not.

    Because it’s getting warmer I’m hardly wearing my winter hat outdoors, ergo no longer leaving it on when I duck into a store for five minutes. Now I wonder if those hipsters wear wool caps everywhere so they can buy themselves a precious drop of 10dB and save their sanity.

    PS Fake product Psilence, from the “Look Around You” series? Please someone invent it and take my money.

  78. 78.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @ThresherK: There is a scene in an early James Bond film where Sean Connery says he’d listen to the Beatles if he had earmuffs.

    I’m going to take the unpopular side and agree with Mr. Bond’s screenwriter. For if the Beatles were resurrected tomorrow and performed live in my hometown, I’d only see them if I could wear earmuffs.

    I love the Beatles, I grew up with them, they were my childhood buddies, my adolescent friends, a comfort in my old age. But I kind of wish a million people hadn’t decided to be influenced by them to take up guitars and blast the hell out of every corner of the earth. I wish the Beatles and ROCK music in general had remained an exotic, fringe art form, rather than the mainstream.

    Last year, my wife slipped on some ice, and broke her leg. While waiting in the E.R., we were treated to loud, crappy ROCK MUSIC over a loudspeaker. A few days later, when the swelling had gone down, we phoned an orthopedist to make an appointment for her cast, and was put on hold and treated to MORE CRAPPY ROCK MUSIC. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant. A beautiful building, constructed sometime in the late 19th century, it was gorgeous inside; all wood paneling, marble columns, brass fixtures… just a wonderfully relaxing place to sit and forget our troubles. And there was LOUD ROCK MUSIC blasting over us, so that people had to talk louder to hear each other.

    John and Paul and George wrote brilliant songs. The people they inspired to pick up guitars follow the same template, loud bass and drums and rhythm guitars and electric keyboards and soaring harmonies and growling lead vocalists, but the songs are uninspired and repetitious. I can’t tell you how happy I am when I occasionally discover a public space that doesn’t blast ROCK MUSIC (dum dum dum dum! bang bang bang!) in my ear while I try to dine, or shop, or read, or wait for a doctor. I found a little organic breakfast place near our home, and they had Billie Holiday and Artie Shaw playing quietly on the sound system. I wanted to weep in gratitude. There’s another restaurant near us, a cozy, softly-lit place that only old 1930s jazz. I feel like a human being again when I eat there.

    Last summer, we visited our outdoor farmers’ market. There is always a live band. If it’s someone playing some sweet acoustic music, it’s a wonderful thing. But often, it’s a group with amplified guitars, and the drummer wailing away like Ginger Baker. I saw an older woman walk past this band with a bag of fresh produce in her hand. Her other hand was cupped over her ear.

    There is a woman in our town who tours in a bus, playing folk music for pre-schoolers. She is a great lady; her heart is in the right place. But when she performs in front of maybe six or seven four-year-olds in a tiny room, and sings into a microphone, and plugs her guitar into a large amp. WHY?? The volume is at a ridiculous level.

    Okay, I know it’s unfair to blame the Beatles for their mediocre imitators, just like it’s unfair to blame Bob Dylan for “Eve Of Destruction” but when did almost every public place become the Cavern Club? We’ve become a culture of Excessive Volume. When did excessive volume become a badge of honor? Was it when Dylan yelled “Play It Fucking Loud!” in 1966?

    When I see James Bond make his earmuff wisecrack, or when I see a 1964 Beatle performance video and a security guard is covering her ears, I’m not seeing a statement about bad songwriting, or wrong notes, or the appropriateness of white teenagers embracing r&b… it’s just too damn loud.

    I’ll just get my hat and coat, and go now.

  79. 79.

    ThresherK

    Speaking of “”things invented before electrical amplification”, I wouldn’t be surprised if the restaurant also had a tin ceiling. Many of the tres charming or simply funky old things in the Northeast, built before the Great War, have em.

    All I can add is:

    I was made aware of “beautiful music” back when I first went to an orhtodontist. Does the universe really want me to miss Ray Coniff and Mantovani and elevator music that much?

    If it weren’t for The Beatles I wouldn’t know that the Reeperbahn, Hamburg was “one of the naughtiest streets in the world”. (Or is that The Rutles?)

    Some places play their folk and jazz recordings too loud, also. Never thought I’d want to say “Turn down that Madeline Peyroux!”

    Cheers.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @Germy Shoemangler: I’ll join you in cloud-shouting: A couple of days ago, I called someone’s cellphone, and when the party didn’t pick up, a recording came on and said something like, “Enjoy this Verizon ringtone while we connect you to voicemail” and then proceeded to blast my eardrum with a classic rock tune for 15 seconds or so. Can’t remember which song, but sweep weepin’ Jaysus on a Stratocaster! And I couldn’t just hang up because I needed to leave a message.

  81. 81.

    satby

    : @Betty Cracker: The joys of silence are so underrated. And though I do enjoy all forms of music except really twangy country, my personal choice 80% of the time now is classical music playing softly. Or nothing.

    I wonder how much of the need for noise is the inability of lots of people to stand being alone with themselves or their thoughts for any length of time?

    Edited ThresherK out as replied to, I was seconding Germy Shoemangler

  82. 82.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @satby: I think that’s a big part of it. The need for distraction.

    Another big part of it is habit. The loud volume becomes “This is how we always do it/have done it”

    I love all kinds of music, but I like having a choice in the matter. I don’t like being a captive audience.

  83. 83.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @ThresherK: Does the universe really want me to miss Ray Coniff and Mantovani and elevator music that much?

    I remember that meme from radio DJs in the 1970s. “Before there was Rock Music, there was… (gasp!) ‘How Much Is That Doggy In The Window’! And muzak! Thank God for the Rock!”

    There was also Anita O’Day and Duke Ellington, etc.

    I love all kinds of music. I agree, the dentist muzak made my skin crawl. My complaint is against the volume, and uninspired, derivative rock artists who make the playlist with the good stuff.

  84. 84.

    J R in WV

    @Bobby Thomson:

    My Mom and Dad were really in love, all their lives. He kept her ashes on his bedside table (in a little cardboard box) from her death in 1997 until he died in 2004. In summer of 2005 my brother and I (and friends and nieces and nephews) gathered for a picnic at a favorite park, and then in the evening drove down into the valley and poured their ashes together into a waterfall that they loved.

    I cried, but it felt great too, doing it as Dad had wanted. Perhaps technically not legal, but also totally harmless.

  85. 85.

    D58826

    Our basset hound always obeyed the voice of authority. He just a bit a of a problem ever actually hearing it.

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: Did she start out as Daisy Mae or Daisy May, only to turn into Daisy Mayhem as her personality showed itself?

    Or was she Mayhem from the very start?

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    @J R in WV: What a great way to honor his wishes.

    @WaterGirl: She started out as just Daisy, but she soon earned the Mayhem name.

    @shell: Nope, that was poor old Patsy Marie. She’s not quite as clever.

  90. 90.

    Gus

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I was, until I heard a story on NPR the other day about academic fraud at UNC. You can say what’s the story about student athletes taking gut classes to maintain eligibility? This, though, was on another level and dated back well into Dean Smith’s tenure at UNC. Kind of disappointing.

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