(Signe Wilkinson via GoComics.com)
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It’s Good Friday for (most) Christians, and the first night of Passover starts at sunset. Best wishes to those who observe those holidays.
(And remember, non-observers, Easter is one of those holidays where retailers — Target, Costco, some malls — will be closed. Also, even if your favorite restaurant is open, it may be fully booked or serving a ‘special’ menu.)
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Apart from holiday preparation, what’s on the agenda as we look longingly towards the weekend?
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it's just performance art at this point pic.twitter.com/xkXIw2VKea
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) April 2, 2015
OzarkHillbilly
No Bryan, that is not what we want. We want the oral sex.
raven
I can wait until the sun comes up to see if the rain washed away the pine pollen.
J R in WV
Slavery, huh?
Wait, is that how it works? I thought it was more like, I’ll pay you and you do your job!! For moneys, to make a living!!
Now I’m really confused… what do these semi-religious people think is going on here?
Mustang Bobby
It’s a teacher work day in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, but the administrative offices will be open. Hopefully it will be a quiet day.
I’ve been invited to a Seder tonight, so I will, at the insistence of the host, wear my Quaker hat as my yarmulke. I love being part of the family’s traditional meal and ceremony, and the food is out of this world.
Betty Cracker
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I’m making a butter lamb for a big family gathering we’re attending on Sunday. I’d never heard of butter lambs until I married into a Polish-American family, but they are a tradition, and since none of the out-of-town folks brought one this year, I volunteered to make it.
I’m a reasonably competent sculptor, but I’ve never worked with butter as a medium. My guess is I’ll have to place the work in progress in the freezer several times. I hope to achieve a more realistic-looking lamb than the one linked above.
This is our first Easter without my father-in-law, who was always in charge of several critical Easter dinner items, including kielbasy soup and reminding my mother-in-law not to burn the rolls. He will be missed.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I bought a duck.
Mustang Bobby
@J R in WV: Thanks for stopping by BBWW. Glad to have you check out the place.
raven
@Betty Cracker: The Ancient Art of Tibetan Butter Sculpting Is Melting Away
Mustang Bobby
@raven: I’m going to rent one first and see if I like it.
MomSense
I wonder how many of these Indiana religious freedom fighters will eat ham for Easter dinner.
I have discovered that my pup is really a single pet kind of dog. I’m pet sitting and foolishly took them both for a walk. My dog saw a squirrel and went nuts barking and running which made the other dog go nuts. It ended up being a combination double dutch jump rope, pasodoble, and 400 meter dash. Still not sure how I managed not to fall.
We got home and then she didn’t want the other dog to eat anything, chew on any toys (his own), or lie down anywhere especially near me. She bullied him non stop and the other dog is about 100 pounds and male.
He had the good sense to go to another room but she was so wound up I had to crate her and cover the crate with a blanket until she calmed down.
raven
@MomSense: I say it about my dogs all the time, they are good dogs but they are dogs.
J R in WV
@MomSense:
Sometimes it’s funny how dumb-looking natural dog behavior can seem.
Our neighbors have a big strong female dog who was abused and rescued. She fears other female dogs, who knows why, and attacks them when given half a chance. All our (much smaller and not aggressive) dogs are female, so we can’t walk the dogs over to P and MA’s house next door.
In fact we have to be sneaky when going next door to avoid dog trouble.
Abo gato
@Betty Cracker: oh. I had in mind some awesome lamb recipe that happened to include a lot of butter. Not that.
I have a boneless leg of lamb in brine that will become lamb pastrami over the weekend.
OzarkHillbilly
‘I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.’ -Ed Begley, Jr.
JPL
@MomSense: That sounds exhausting.
Nickws
Unofficial B-J frontpager Dave Weigel has some very triangulatory thoughts on this whole mess: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-01/democrats-turn-against-religious-freedom-laws-voters-don-t-agree-with-them-
Spoilers: It’s an indisputable, empirical fact that “Democrats are endorsing something more radical than voters are comfortable with,” and therefore any aggressive opposition to the Indiana law must therefore be outlier, next-generation behaviour. Behaviour that Weigel even-handedly implies is currently the exact societal equivalent of the Bryan Fischer crowd’s actions.
No doubt if he changes his framing on this issue he’ll start a new thread here to inform us, his loyal Weigelian readers…
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Talk talk talk, sometimes I think I must go mad!
MomSense
@raven:
So true.
@J R in WV:
She knows this dog which makes it even stranger. When she was younger she used to cuddle up with him and nap so I’m not sure why she changed her attitude about him. He’s sweet as can be. Her best puppy friend is coming over to play today so I hope she snaps out of it.
MomSense
@JPL:
I think it was also hilarious looking because I could see a couple of my neighbors laughing as we went by.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense:
Are you sure your dog isn’t a Republican?
satby
@MomSense: sounds like the doggy version of the terrible twos.
MomSense
@BillinGlendaleCA:
She was certainly acting like one but hopefully she will grow out of it.
@satby:
Terrible twos with a side of jealousy.
Speaking of bizarre partisan behavior, the governor had to end a town hall meeting abruptly when a former lawmaker, a democrat, threw vaseline at him in a reference to a comment the governor had made about another lawmaker. I know of the vaseline thrower from many years of being a teacher in her district so I’m not exactly surprised by her behavior. It takes a special person to make our governor appear to be the reasonable person in the room.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Stuck at work for another hour. Lord, I despise this post. Thankfully, it’s just one shift a week; the rest are at the much better place I’ve described before. My co-workers there may all be right wing nuts, but they’re reliable, competent, and useful right wing nuts. The idiots here are constantly late for their shifts and clearly don’t do jack while they’re here.
I’m planning to start my Kickstarter on April 15, though there may be slippage. I have a meeting with my consultant today about marketing blurbs. I’m hoping ruemara has the video she’s talked about done by then but I’ve reached the point where I need to go ahead regardless.
Baud
I thought involuntary labor is what the anti-abortion folks wanted.
MomSense
@Baud:
Well done, sir.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh.
OzarkHillbilly
A new use for tampons: Tracking sewage in rivers.
Phylllis
@Mustang Bobby: We’re off today with Spring break next week. Everyone, kids and teachers, were off the chain yesterday. District office was a madhouse.
About a million errands to run today, with a mani-pedi in the middle.
Iowa Old Lady
@J R in WV: If doing stuff you don’t want to do at work is slavery, then there are a whole lot of slaves out there.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
So is Cracker your married name or your maiden name?
Mustang Bobby
@Phylllis: We had the same craziness on March 20. It’s interesting how some districts and colleges decide when spring break is. Some do it around St. Patrick’s Day, some around Easter/Passover, and some actually do it in conjunction with the vernal equinox. We invariably take the last week of March regardless of holidays.
Mustang Bobby
What part of Toledo are they from? (Yeah, there was a huge Polish population there when I was growing up. That’s where I learned to love kielbasa.)
Peale
@SiubhanDuinne: Betty Kraków?
OzarkHillbilly
@Peale: Close it up, it’s all over, Peale has won the internets for the day.
JMG
Because our kitchen is being remodeled (had to, serious water damage to floor from malfunctioning refrigerator) we will be having Easter dinner at my son’s apartment in Boston. Menu is osso buco and asparagus risotto. All we have to bring is the wine and chairs. Today will be listening to the sound of carpentry, I hope.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: The town that I grew up in had a polish population that had annual picnics and fairs. Kapusta was always a favorite of mine.
ThresherK
@JMG: Malfunctioning from the inside or the outside?
I became expert in evacuating and speed-defrosting our malfunctioning fridge/freezer, until the Sears online advisor (about the best thing Sears has remaining with its name on it) pointed me to the fix-it part. Now the drain down to the evaporation pan is working again. (Learned more than I knew I could about it in the process.)
I never trusted the idea of having a water connection into it, so we never used the icemaker.
Matt McIrvin
I have seen people sincerely attempt to characterize corporate income taxes as a form of slavery, illegal under the 13th Amendment.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
If you’ve never seen it, watch this thoroughly delightful movie called “Butter”.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7KE5PRNeems
Betty Cracker
@Peale: Perfect!
@Mustang Bobby: Buffalonians!
The more I think about it, I should probably make the butter lamb when we arrive at our Easter dinner destination rather than sculpting it at home and transporting it in a cooler. I’ll have an audience, which is a major drawback. But it would really suck to have it ruined by sloshing around in a cooler during the trip.
Schlemazel
Since I have not seen him here recently maybe Blob in porkland got fired? But I thought we should keep this Guardian story handy for when he returns.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house
JMG
@ThresherK: It was a Subzero, a housewarming gift from my parents, and part of the defrosting system continually malfunctioned in its final years of life. As it was about the size of a car, we didn’t discover the floor damage underneath it until we bought a new one and the guys came to deliver it. I’m not what anyone would call handy.
raven
@JMG: Those are great as long as they work.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Butter duck?
Major Major Major Major
Went to the Taipei National Palace Museum today. Saw the inexplicably treasured artifacts The Jade Cabbage and Meat Shaped Stone. And everything else of course, those two just surprised me.
raven
@Betty Cracker: frozen
ThresherK
@JMG: Oh gawd. Our new condo has a SubZero in it. (We’re leasing, but still…) Now I’m scared, and I shoulda just kept my mouth shut!
Perhaps discretion is the better part of valor in your case. Handy is as handy does, but from what I hear there are many more delicate and expensive parts to play with on one of those than the plebian device I used to have. And if one says “I tried to fix it first” I guess the SubZero mechanic’s eyes go more like ($$$) ($$$) than ($) ($).
SRW1
@MomSense:
Please allow me to congratulate you on your most excellent sense of humor, Mom.
Phylllis
@Mustang Bobby: Ours is summat tied to Easter; more to do with The Masters, due to increased traffic and the # of folks around here who attend or work at Augusta National during the tournament. Most of the colleges around here have already had their break.
Germy Shoemangler
Troll on another site posted this info:
“Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people and Congress in a fact sheet it released following the culmination of negotiations with the Islamic Republic.”
Out of curiosity I copied and pasted the above into “the google” and the results (word for word) were from a million crank RW websites and blogs. Not a single real news outlet, just wingnutty sites. But he posted it (pretending they were his own words) and said that Obama would go down in history as the worst ever.
raven
@Phylllis: It depends, UGA and Athens public was two weeks ago. System institutions all follow their own schedules. And, while I am at it, THIRTY years in Georgia and I still can’t get a damn ticket to the Masters/
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel: Word is he got the ban hammer.
raven
Big fire at GE plant in Lville.
Phylllis
@raven: I used to go for the practice rounds when I was in college in Charleston; a classmate’s uncle was a member. Back then, the practice rounds weren’t any big deal, but as more folks started coming, they went to paid tickets. Because the AN folks do not miss an opportunity to monetize that thing.
I’ve done the lottery for the past six-seven years and haven’t gotten lucky yet.
waysel
@raven: ‘Why a duck?’
raven
@Phylllis: Me too on the lottery. I’d like to go to the practice round so I could take pictures and have a pimento sammy!
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/2/15
Law for new mothers saved after shaming of Alabama legislator
Rachel Maddow tells the story of Alabama State Sen. Larry Stutts, a former doctor, who tried to repeal a law to help new mothers, Rose’s Law, that is named after one of his patients who died in his care. Stutts changed his mind amid widespread public outrage.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/law-for-new-mothers-saved–legislator-shamed-422433347542
Phylllis
@raven: And tear up the gift shop. Oh, they play golf there?
debbie
Glen Greenwald is speaking now on Glen Beck’s program. Talk about strange bedfellows.
Patrick
@Germy Shoemangler:
I thought right-wingers hated Iran. Yet, now they believe their foreign minister’s statement word for word…A statement he probably never even made.
rikyrah
Stanford Will Now Be Free To All Students From Families That Earn Less Than $125,000 Per Year
BY BRYCE COVERT
POSTED ON APRIL 2, 2015 AT 10:53 AM UPDATED: APRIL 2, 2015 AT 6:49 PM
Last week, Stanford University announced that more accepted students won’t have to pay anything for tuition, which normally runs nearly $46,000 a year.
Students whose families make less than $125,000 a year and have assets worth $300,000 or less, including home equity but excluding anything that they have saved in retirement accounts, won’t have to pay tuition. Students whose families make less than $65,000 also won’t have to pay for room and board, which can run about another $14,100. Scholarships or grants will cover the costs instead, and the school has a $21 billion endowment. The thresholds were previously $100,000 for free tuition and $60,000 for free room and board.
Students will still have to contribute at least $5,000 a year from part-time work during the school year, working during the summer, and/or savings.
“Our highest priority is that Stanford remain affordable and accessible to the most talented students, regardless of their financial circumstances,” said Provost John Etchemendy in a press release. “Our generous financial aid program accomplishes that, and these enhancements will help even more families, including those in the middle class, afford Stanford without going into debt.” The school says that 77 percent of undergraduates leave without student debt.
That makes Stanford graduates somewhat unique, as about 70 percent graduate with debt, owing an average of $29,000 at the end of last year. Student loan debt has tripled over the last decade. Meanwhile, nearly a third of those who have started to pay back the loans are more than three months behind on payments.
But Stanford isn’t the only place offering free tuition. Princeton offers free tuition to parents who make less than $120,000 and free room and board to those who make under $60,000. Harvard and Yale make tuition free for families who make less than $65,000, while Harvard asks those who make between that level and $150,000 to contribute between 0 and 10 percent of their income.
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/04/02/3642085/stanford-free-tuition/
karen marie
@rikyrah: Wonkette covered that.
Matt
Thought of the day: RFRA allows a Christianist bigot who owns a shop to refuse service to gay people. Flip it around, and the Christianist is protected by anti-discrimination laws – “special rights” indeed…
lamh36
ICYMI the first lady was on the tonight show to promote 5 years of let’s move. lol at the “Barack Obama” and the “Jimmy Fallon”
Evolution of Mom Dancing 2
I tell ya what. I may be a bigger Michelle-Obot than an Barack-Obot. Michelle Obama just seems so awesome! I’ll miss her husband when they leave but I’m gonna miss Michelle and the weeMichelles just has much if not more
boatboy_srq
@J R in WV: Any task – compensated or not – that offends their tender sensibilities is “forced labor.” One more reason they hate the IRS: every year they’re forced to tell Big Gummint how much money they make. You’ll notice how they are making a “religious observance” out of everything they do: suddenly showing up to work is a “Christian act”. they want all the license to call everything they do religious, but none of the restrictions that used to go with that (no jobs in finance because Christians can’t charge Christians interest, etc).
boatboy_srq
@Matt: RFRA could also allow Catholic business to refuse service to Protestants because Heretics, and Muslim businesses to refuse Christians because Infidels. Not that many will do that, but it’s fun to think about. Unintended consequences can be delicious.
A Humble Lurker
@debbie:
Two delusional, conspiracy spouting, extremely self-aggrandizing white dudes do not strange bedfellows make. The only thing that’s strange is a team up of this kind didn’t happen sooner.
Felonius Monk
Gee, Bryan Fischer, if I can be your Overlord by becoming gay, sign me up — I’ll convert just to see you squirm, you insufferable maggot.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Betty Cracker:
As I said before, good luck!
Amir Khalid
@boatboy_srq:
I wonder about that oft-cited scenario of a Muslim shopkeeper in a majority-Christian Midwestern US town refusing to serve the infidel. Just whom is he counting on for business, then?
@Nickws:
The only thing I learned from Weigel’s column is that he doesn’t grok the concept of “principles”.
Librarian
@boatboy_srq: And you notice that they don’t mind it a bit when low wage workers are not paid for work off the clock- that kind of forced labor is just fine with them.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
Butter Lamb thread at boingboing.net yesterday.
Butter lamb mania peaks this weekend
Some nice pictures at the links at the link.
catclub
@ThresherK:
me too for a long time. But I also thought that electric windows in a car would fail. Some things, those guys have figured out pretty well.
(I really thought the automatic seatbelt would fail. It worked like a champ for decades.)
Amir Khalid
@Bill Arnold:
Are butter lambs meant to be a decorative centre-piece for the table? If so, how long are they kept after the festive meal?
eric
@raven: it’s a witch!
Seanly
@Nickws:
Ugh, that article gave me a headache…
My shorter: Republicans back unpopular, terrible laws, Democrats to go down in flames.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: The point isn’t that the the Muslim baker wouldn’t be able to stay in business under those circumstances; it’s that the Reichwingnut Xtians cannot envision a scenario in which they would be the ones denied service. It’d be the equivalent of a gay barber refusing to cut straight people’s hair: he’d be on the street inside a week, but “that nice hairstylist” would NEVER turn Aunt Phyllis away just because she wouldn’t sell him cookies for his unGodly homo wedding reception. Shoe-and-other-foot.
Iowa Old Lady
A butter cow is traditional at the Iowa State Fair. The first time someone told me about that, I thought it was a joke, but no. Butter sculpture is big, including butter Tiger Woods.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/08/iowa-state-fair-to-feature-butter-sculpture-of-field-of-dreams
boatboy_srq
@Librarian: True. And (as our Steve wingnutty-doppelganger pointed out in another thread) they’re all put out when they are required to provide their employees actually useful health insurance.
Heliopause
You live back east, don’t you.
boatboy_srq
@Librarian: Afterthought: it makes you wonder whether the Ick factor in actually paying salary-and-benefits that we ascribe to them missing slavery is merely a response to being required to put any effort at all into earning a living. Slaves were popular because (in theory) they let the owners sit back and watch things get done; now, without that, they have to either pay employees or lift a finger for themselves, and neither of those things is palatable.
Botsplainer
@raven:
Huge fire – 6 alarms in a massive facility which looks like a complete burnout. The plume is monstrous and friends who live lownwind are posting about the delightful smells of plastic and some other nasties.
Prevailing winds will carry it far from my house.
Botsplainer
Shelter in place for the surrounding area issued.
http://www.wlky.com/news/massive-fire-breaks-out-at-ge-appliance-park/32170788
Hydrochloric acid is popping out of this fire, KY and US EPA called in.
Betty Cracker
@Bill Arnold: Thank you! That top picture is sort of the look I plan to go for!
@Amir Khalid: At the Polish-American Easter dinners I’ve attended, the butter lamb isn’t just decorative — they eat it!
Elizabelle
Butter lambs for Easter and peppermint pigs for Christmas.
Happy holiday weekend, all. Whatever your holiday (or make one up).
Calouste
@Germy Shoemangler: Of course there is the question of why the Iranian Foreign Minister would complain about what the US government tells its citizens. About negotiations that haven’t been fully concluded yet. Well, at least, most likely thanks to spell check, some right wing nut-job managed to spell “culmination” right, it would be too much to also expect them to use it with the right meaning in the right context.
Elizabelle
Terrible about the GE Louisville fire. I hope the responders and employees are all safe. Wonder if people are gonna be out of work for a while. Hope there are no longterm health effects (short-term either).
Goblue72
@rikyrah I wonder what percentage of Stanford undergrads come from families earning less than that.
To me that would be the real story.
Tree With Water
It was Easter week just over 50 years ago that I rejected religious affiliation with all faiths for the duration. I can even pinpoint the moment, although I was 6 or 7 years old. We had been handed crayons in Sunday school and told to draw the ascension. Which I did, with the added spin of drawing Jesus falling through the cloud that was lifting him skyward and wearing a surprised look on his face. When I explained to the Sunday school teacher what the drawing meant to represent, she scolded me. I thought to myself, “you don’t have a sense of humor, and you are a drag”. I had only been attending for a couple of months by that time, and just why exactly, I don’t recall. I was probably invited by a friend, because my parents definitely had nothing to do with it. They didn’t mind me attending, and didn’t care when I quit. Which was that Sunday, by the way. The hell of it is, Jesus must have been blessed with a terrific sense of humor, and I know in my bones he would have had a good laugh over my drawing.
Frankensteinbeck
@A Humble Lurker:
Hey, Glenn Greenwald isn’t a racist, conspiracy theorist bog-standard libertarian who lies about the law, he’s all about
ethics in journcivil liberties!I am surprised by this team-up, because GG is very concerned about his reputation and appearing serious to the liberals he ratfucks. Beck is a laughingstock, and I would have thought GG would not want to be associated with that.
@boatboy_srq:
Not really. It’s mostly an asshole ego trip. If they can’t grind down their employees, how will they feel better than the common man? For your example, I give you John Schnatter, a man who puts himself in every advertisement his company makes, and who threw a public hissy fit over Obamacare, which might cost – gasp – 15 cents per pizza! He hated, hated being told what to do. Especially by a black man. (Schnatter is from Kentucky.)
Elizabelle
@Nickws:
Excuse me, Mr. Weigel? You sure about this?
I don’t think that means what Weigel thinks it does. Democrats (and lots of folks, including moderate GOP leaners and libertarians, and the apolitical who appreciate the separation of church and state) realize when a law is crafted to discriminate. Against LGBTs here, but could be used against whole classes of citizens and customers.
Weigel again:
No, what’s happened is Democrats are familiar with history. They remember Jim Crow. They remember Loving vs. Virginia. They don’t believe so much they craft their own reality.
Weigel is mouth-flapping to make Republicans’ fees fees better. And nice swipe at Hillary there.
The important thing is the ability to learn and evolve. So if Hillary has done so publicly, thank you for pointing it out. I doubt she was against gay marriage in her heart of hearts.
Elizabelle
To counter Weigel’s opinions: Ron Brownstein on the Snooze Hour last night re religious freedom.
PBS had a Baptist pastor with a gorgeously soothing, lowkey voice delivering some pretty backward views.
Brownstein:
[I thought “uneasy about these changes” was a gentle way to put it. PBS-worthy.]
Elizabelle
@Goblue72: Yeah, I wonder that too.
Although some of it is that Stanford has a huge endowment, doesn’t it?
Tree With Water
Sports guy Aaron Wilson is reporting:
“Hearing the NFL has hired its first female official, Sarah Thomas, a ground-breaking move. Mississippi native was a finalist previously”.
I’d like to think somewhere Jackie Robinson is smiling.
Elizabelle
Next up, the preacher, on last night’s Newshour. Third guest was Micheline Maynard of ASU’s Business Journalism program, to talk about how Arizona dodged this particular bullet. They take threats to hosting the Super Bowl seriously.
Take it away, Reverend Tim Overton, pastor of Halteman Village Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana:
Silver tongued voice of the devil, coming through a preacher with a reassuring manner. The RFRA passed federally by Bill Clinton had an entirely different motive than Indiana’s polarizing bill. That statement goes completely unchallenged by Ifill or anyone else.
And it’s religions that want to insert themselves into Americans’ private lives, more than government would ever dare.
But the part about Indiana legislators’ businesses taking a hit? Have you seen any reporting on that? That’s cake.
gogol's wife
Way too late for this thread, Betty, but this video happened to pop up on YouTube when I opened it this morning (lamb jumping on bed):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWIFkbrlrUs
You’re also reminding me of that great MASH episode when they molded a lamb out of spam because they didn’t have the heart to slaughter the lamb for the Greek Easter celebration. (this may already have been mentioned but I don’t have time to read the thread, sorry)
delk
@Betty Cracker: They do sell butter (and cake) molds.
I grew up in a very Polish Catholic family, south side, Back of the Yards. Shades of Saul Alinsky! Easter was a big deal.
On Saturday, everything, I mean everything that we would eat on Sunday got blessed. Even salt and pepper. Everything went into baskets and walked over to the church.
All scraps were now holy and had to be burned in the pot belly stove we had in the basement.
My Jewish husband almost accidentally threw away an egg shell, mom freaked. From then on she made sure to hold back some things that didn’t get blessed, just for him,lol. She knew that he could do the right disposal thing, but I think she was trying hard to show that she thought he was special and was doing something for him.
Even more so than Mother’s Day, I miss my mom on Easter. A lot.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Overton is a Piece Of Work. He keeps insisting that SSM without a matching RFRA would compel him to officiate at a gay wedding, and he keeps dancing around how any Xtian in the workplace is actually performing a ministry simply by holding down a job. And he keeps calling any work product speech protected as artistic expression (under the 1st Amendment natch). I’m waiting for his suggestion that any Xtian doing anything is by definition clergy engaged in ministering to (an as yet unidentified) community and is therefore exempt from all income tax. I don’t know what p!sses me off more: that w#nkers like him are expecting magical free rides because Jeebus, or that the spineless, unthinking MSM interviewer twits aren’t calling him on his BS.
boatboy_srq
@Frankensteinbeck: No argument on the a##h0le ego trip bit. But you get the impression with more than a few that having “achieved”, they’d be happy stopping there, and having to [gasp] work at this point is somehow offensive. Schnatter looks absolutely pained every time he has to do one of those ads (well, one of those ads that doesn’t include one of his football-player heroes; in those he can laugh and joke and throw a ball around with somebody who does/did that orders of magnitude better than he ever could, but he’s white so it’s OK). I still can’t decide if what he hates most is the camera, his customers, or just having to expend energy to promote the business.
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq: The Overton Stained Glass Window.
They have no legitimate arguments. None.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
I take it this Reverend Tim is not the guy with the window.
ETA: Dang, you beat me to it. Pout.
Betty Cracker
@gogol’s wife: Squeee!
@delk: My husband tells me his family used to take all the food in to be blessed too. I think my mother-in-law still takes the bread in?
Anyway, that was sweet of your mom to show your husband that he was family too. I miss my mom every damn day, but it is harder around the holidays.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Maybe do a quick and dirty test run on a throwaway hunk of butter so you can get the feel at home for the best temperature for butter sculpting, best tools, etc? And then do the real thing when you get there.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@WaterGirl: No such thing as throwaway butter! Eat it.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Leaded glass. Stained glass is iconography (hence an abomination); leaded glass is at once comparatively plain and a dogwhistle h/t to the 2nd Amendment shouters.
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: Loved the foo-foo curly lamb at the top. And I am not typically a foo-foo girl.
WaterGirl
@delk: Easter is the “dad” holiday for me. After my mom died, my dad always spent easter here with me. He would stay for a week and he loved driving around looking at the tulips that were everywhere.
First easter after my mom died:
Me: “Dad, what do you want for Easter dinner? Lamb like mom always made?”
(she was greek)
Dad: Spaghetti and meatballs.
Me: “It’s Easter! We can’t have spaghetti and meatballs for Easter.”
Dad: Okay, how about meatloaf?
Me: “Spaghetti and meatballs, it is!”
So spaghetti and meatballs became the new Easter tradition with my Dad – for the next 10 years while he was still with us, and even after that, spaghetti and meatballs it was, in honor of my dad.
WaterGirl
@delk: @Betty Cracker: Only one of my significant relationships was with a woman, and my parents would have been horrified to discuss it or openly acknowledge it or even admit it to themselves.
But at Christmas, Jill always got the “extra” gifts my mom gave to her 3 daughters, whether it was matching socks or something else. Nothing was ever said, but she was treated just like a member of the family, not as just a friend.
Interesting times.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: That’s a sweet story about the spaghetti and meatballs. What a good memory.
I am glad to hear other people get tired of the usual fare. (Ham in our family. We don’t have a talent for lamb; my late dad was the expert there, although I think it was ham for Easter all the many years …)
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Thanks, Elizabelle! This daddy’s girl misses her dad with easter coming up.
I am one hour and 20 minutes into the 2-hour timeframe that Comcast is supposed to arrive to fix my TV issue.
I do have to say that the woman I spoke to on Saturday actually seemed to care about my problem and she did follow up as promised. Since I really HATE COMCAST, I feel obligated to also share when they do something right.
Jay C
@Elizabelle:
You might expect some pastor to spout off this stuff, but, yeah, where’s the pushback? I realize discussions about “religion” in one form or another are a kind of sacred cow (pun intended) for most of American “journalism” , in that pronouncements from clergy and/or religiously-oriented organizations are treated as gospel (again, pun intended) even when it is political activity (and despite all the holy-holy wailing and gnashing, these “Religious Freedom” bills are really all about the politics) which are at issue. But do we hear much, if anything, from any “respectable” sources about the secularist side of the issue? Pastor Overton can whine all he wants about
yet the very notion that the converse might also be true – that religious beliefs ought not to “intrude” into government, except minimally, never seems to get aired much. Wonder why?
BTW, for better-written and better-reasoned (dead wrong, IMO, but still better-reasoned) butthurt-airing and self-martyrdom, check out Rod Dreher’s blog at The American Conservative : to him, the Indiana “fix” to their RFRA is about on par with Spanish Civil War-level anticlericalism:
delk
@Betty Cracker: Bread, the lamb butter, the cookies and deserts, the table floral arrangements. My mom and dad had three pack mules to load down.
The baskets themselves were covered in beautifully hand embroidered coverings sewn by my mother during her three pregnancies.
The best part of the whole thing is my mom was a little Mexican lady that moved in with my dad and his mother, my aunt lived upstairs, my uncle lived next door, another uncle lived across the street and bunch more within walking distance. Everybody spoke Polish.
My mom became not only an expert in Polish cooking, but a little fluent in the language as well.
delk
@WaterGirl: I have fond memories of my dad chopping up all the leftover polish sausage and scrambling it up in eggs for us on the Saturday after Easter.
He died way too young at 57.
WaterGirl
@delk: My dad was 84, and it was still hard. 57 is quite young. I like the vision of your mom being a little mexican lady who spoke Polish.
divF
@Major Major Major Major:
So far you’re hitting the major
tastelessarchitecturally interesting locations. Missing from your list (or at least I’ve missed them) is the Taipei 101 skyscraper (with the 660 ton tuned mass damper) and the Taipei Grand Hotel (seen in exterior shots of Eat Drink Man Woman).Fred
This refusing to do work because the business person has a moral prohibition has gotten me thinking about something I did many years ago.
I used to do illustrations for hire. One day a man introduced himself as “The Grand Wizard of the Maryland KKK” and wanted me to do a rendering of a Klan emblem. I politely refused. The man was gracious about it and left.
I had always reserved my personal judgement in that kind of work as I considered myself acting as the customers’ agent so it wasn’t my job to judge if the work was proper so long as it was legal. But this case was different, somehow it would have felt like a deep personal failing to do it.
Now that I think about it I’m wondering if I could have been sued for refusing to serve the customer? That puts the shoe on the other foot.
The devil is always in the details but maybe if some baker doesn’t want to bake a cake for a wedding of a gay couple, it would be best to just smile, say OK and find another baker. And then as Jesus said, ‘Shake the dust of that house from your sandals and don’t return.’
Personally if some business is run by A-Holes I would rather not deal with them.
Now what kind of pizza would be most appropriate for a June wedding? Pepperoni or mushroom?
Fred
I can see this is a dead end thread but I feel the need to add something to my own comment for history.
Just to clarify, I do not equate the KKK with LGBT folks. My thought was about the consequences of denying anyone the right to abstain from participating in activity they find morally questionable.
This is not about refusal to sell in a retail outlet. Service in a restaurant, hardware store, etc. is a right. Customized service that requires personal involvement seems to get into a different area of thought and emotion.
But the question is, should a caterer be forced to serve at a Klan rally? Should ‘Mom’s Pretty Cakes’ be liable for a lawsuit for refusing to make and deliver a burning cross cake to a Klan convention?
I got to say it gives me no joy to throw a stick in the spokes of an issue where the good guys seem to be winning hands down in the court of public opinion. Trouble is that worm can turn. But of course no one will pay a bit of attention to anything I say on this subject. Somehow that gives me some peace.