This morning, I was brushing my teeth, and I noticed the water in the bathroom sink was draining a little slowly. It wasn’t a full-fledged backup, just slower than usual drainage. I looked in the drain, but I didn’t see anything. Since I was still sleepy and bleary-eyed, I quickly forgot all about it.
Later, my husband came out of the bathroom to report that there was either a snake or a frog stuck in the drain. I think there used to be one of those metal plug things that raise up and down in the sink drain, but it is long gone, so now it’s just a bare drain pipe opening with a slender metal cross bar recessed an inch or two below the sink bowl bottom.
The creature had wedged most of its head past the cross bar but couldn’t seem to fit through the rest of its body through. Do I have a picture? Hell no — it could have been a snake, so I wasn’t about to get that close to it.
We debated what to do about it. Snake or frog, we didn’t wish to harm it, but we obviously had to evict it from our sink drain. Hubby proposed prodding it with a screwdriver, but I argued that would injure it. And possibly prompt a poisonous snake to leap forth and sink its fangs into his hand.
I proposed running water at a high rate of speed into the sink to create a pool and then plunging the critter down. I’m not clear on why that was considered a bad idea, but hubby basically said, “Oh fuck it, I’m going to prod the damned thing and see what it does,” and off he went to the bathroom armed with a rounded Sharpie marker (lid on).
Well, all he had to do was lightly touch the creature with the marker, and it turned tail (revealing itself to be a frog after all) and fled. We ran water after it to make sure it would not return.
The end.
PS: That is not my real sink pictured above. My actual sink is from the 1970s and has never been that clean, at least not since I’ve lived in this house.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Why do frogs suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me
They long to be
Close to yyyyoooouuuu
(With apologies to the Carpenters)
I am still convinced the frogs are trying to communicate to you that you are their Queen and convince you to take your place on their throne. Their slimy, slimy throne.
lamh36
Ugh…I figured this was the case. And those muthafuckers still defending the Duggars and that piece of shit!
Tenar Darell
Turtles, sink frogs and snakes oh my! What is this, Animal Planet? We get Kitties, Puppies and other Vertebrates here at Balloon-Juice; it’s a full service blog with plenty of wildlife.
scuffletuffle
You have interesting guests at your house. I only have raccoons, opposums and the occasional skunk. Yes, i do leave cat food out, why do you ask?
Tenar Darell
@lamh36: OH HELL, no! I wonder what Megan Kelly will ask now? Will she cancel, softball or hardball? ETA the exclamation, just because it needs to be said.
Shana
Love the Bloggess reference Betty. And eternal thanks to whichever BJ commenter nominated the Beyonce post of hers for Post of the Year a couple of Decembers ago.
JPL
Betty, Last week my son went to use his toilet and found a tree frog on the rim. I took a shower once, and saw a lizard sticking his head out of the drain. I meant to inform the now ex when he got home, but forgot. The next morning while the now ex, was showering the lizard decided to climb out of the drain and shower with him. Much hilarity ensued.
@Tenar Darell: She’ll pretend ignorance about the latest report. This is information most fox viewers won’t know anyway.
lamh36
@Tenar Darell: ugh…someone should send this shhhh to stepford Megyn…ugh
Germy Shoemangler
Another 19-century fable from Ambrose Bierce:
shell
Wow. It’s alway hecks-a-poppin’ critter-wise down in Florida.
Next is an alligator coming up thru the toilet?
Cacti
For any Tennis fans…
Djokovic demolished Nadal in straight sets at the French Open men’s quarters, including a 6-1 third set.
For non-fans…Nadal is the greatest clay court player in the history of the men’s game, and the greatest French Open performer by a wide margin.
Germy Shoemangler
The US Senate voted 50-49 to reject “the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change, days after NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2014 the hottest year ever recorded on Earth.”
Valdivia
Yikes, this is the stuff my nightmares are made of. Growing up in Costa Rica frogs would make frequent visits and I would always check sink, shower and toilet for their presence lest I be caught unawares. Obviously, I still have not gotten over it.
Tree With Water
That frog was a scout. They’ll be back, and won’t be stopped by any stinking sharpie markers, either. You should have finished him when you had the chance.
scav
@Germy Shoemangler: Cnut has spoken (except the actual Cnut seems to have had an actual clue unlike the bare majority of this lot).
trollhattan
@lamh36:
Not to worry, Megyn’s ON IT.
“So, Josh, eighteen brothers and sisters, huh? That must get crazy at times!”
mtiffany
Thank FSM, someone else. I don’t feel so alone any more. Thanks Betty.
Big ole hound
Hey Betty, If the frog goes down, where does it end up? The septic tank or city sewer?. When you guys found it was it coming up the drain or trying to go down? Please finish the story.
PurpleGirl
I’ve been trying to declutter my apartment for months. It’s been happening but slowly. Just tied up one bag of undifferentiated paper for recycling. I need to run some errands now but it feels good to be getting paper ready to toss.
trollhattan
@shell:
Pursued by a python and you’ve got yourself an Animal Planet special.
Dave C
I hate to be that guy…ah hell..who am I kidding–I love to be that guy! Anyway, it is very unlikely that you had a poisonous snake in your drain. In fact, it would probably be more likely that had a poisonous frog in your drain, as those do exist. It is possible, however, that you had a venomous snake in your drain.
To be clear, poison is something that is ingested or absorbed, while venom is something that is injected. Spiders and some snakes can be venomous, but to my knowledge are never poisonous.
/pedantic biologist
trollhattan
@Big ole hound:
My SWAG is a tree frog got on the roof and climbed down a drain vent, giving it free access to the whole piping network. Do they leave pheromone trails for others to follow, like ants? One wonders.
fuckwit
Punters. Go visit Australia if you want critters.
PurpleGirl
@mtiffany: My bathroom sink is circa 1962. Construction of the complex began in 1958, I think. The kitchen sink has been replaced once or twice but not the bathroom sink or tub.
trollhattan
@Dave C:
If we’re going there, can we take the time clear up inappropriate use of “toxin” and the use of “toxic” as a noun? Drives me batty.
Just One More Canuck
I’ve had it with these motherfucking frogs in these motherfucking sinks
catclub
@Big ole hound: There is usually an air vent on toilet drains, so the critter might have entered the air vent (on the roof), and in principle, could get out that way.
Cacti
Since it’s an open thread…
I’ll call this one Exhibit A that Elizabeth Warren is from the demagogue rather than the populist wing of the Dem Party.
Senator Warren writes a scathing and personal rebuke to SEC Chair Mary Jo White on her tenure there.
The same SEC Chair that the good Senator voted to approve as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, and in her confirmation vote before the entire Senate.
Link
trollhattan
@fuckwit:
“We have twelve of the world’s ten most venomous snakes!” (Pronounced: “snoykes”)
–Steve Irwin (at some point, I’m pretty sure)
PurpleGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: Morans, the lot of them. Aww hell, the science shows on various Discovery channels even accept climate change and make the distinction between climate and weather. Like to put the lot of them on some ice floes and let them float out into the ocean.
leeleeFL
@Tree With Water: I am laughing my buns off at this. Thanks, it feels fabulous! I needed a good chuckle!
catclub
@trollhattan:
My grandparents (In Florida, natch), in the fifties, found a python wrapped around their water heater. It was probably the father/mother of all those now out in the Everglades.
It got in the newspaper.
Betty Cracker
@Big ole hound: City sewer. It has probably already hoisted itself out of a storm drain and is on its way back by now. This isn’t the first frog to show up in my bathroom. One came up out of the toilet once (and attached itself to my ass), and another jumped on me when I was in the shower.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
Well, that question is answered! We don’t have to worry about this anymore. No siree. Them big scientific brains in the Senate are obviously smarter than them fools with their physics and astronomy chemistry and PhDs an such. Let’s all go out an’ burn some fossil fuels.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: What’s demagogic or hypocritical about that? Warren said she had high hopes for White during the confirmation and was disappointed with White’s subsequent performance. She laid out the reasons for her disappointment in detail.
Germy Shoemangler
wife and I were house hunting a few years ago. We looked at quite a few, but none of them seemed right (overpriced and bad condition). Finally we looked at a house that had promise. It wasn’t a wreck like some of the others. We both sort of liked it, but were timid.
Driving home from the showing with our windows open, a tiny frog jumped into our car and landed on the dashboard. We pulled over and let it out by the side of the road.
When we got home, my wife checked google, and then told me that frogs were a symbol of good luck to come.
We bought the house.
Paul in KY
You might have killed it. Aquatic creatures do not do well with chlorinated water. Know you wouldn’t have meant to.
David in NY
@Cacti: Um. So Warren is a demagogue? She voted for White based on White’s promises. She thinks White has not kept those promises, so she’s now criticizing her. Sounds pretty consistent and, indeed, admirable to me.
Reminds me of Keynes’s riposte: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” [slight paraphrase]
David in NY
@Germy Shoemangler: All 50 Republicans? Hope so. The GOP can own this.
Belafon
@Cacti: She sounds like any other Democrat. I would expect Warren to stay home the next time White comes up for a vote.
Cacti
@David in NY:
Mmm hmmm.
Warren was so deeply concerned about White’s Wall Street ties, she only voted for her twice.
How very principled of her.
Paul in KY
@Cacti: I guess she didn’t turn out to be the type of regulator that Sen. Warren had hoped she would be.
boatboy_srq
Gulf Coast FL water. ‘Nuff said. That stuff is nasty: sulfur, iron, you name it. Mum went full-blown RO and it wasn’t enough.
@lamh36: In a closed society where women are
vessels for male procreationsubordinate to men, this isn’t especially surprising. Jim Bob has a lot to answer for.Cacti
@Paul in KY:
Sherrod Brown also had concerns about White’s Wall Street ties, and voted no.
Go figure.
Tree With Water
@Cacti: “The same SEC Chair that the good Senator voted to approve as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, and in her confirmation vote before the entire Senate”.
Which she afterward regretted, the reasons for which she spelled out in that letter. It reflects well on her, Cacti. Think it through..
Botsplainer
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/georgia-man-wandered-around-atlanta-airport-with-a-loaded-ar-15-because-something-might-happen/
Its a shame nobody blew this guy’s fool brains out in order to make the world a better place AND as a lesson to others.
Cacti
@Tree With Water:
Or a calculated move for a future source of outrage. Being perpetually aggrieved isn’t Sherrod Brown’s schtick, and he voted no.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, too, thanks to the recommendations I got yesterday, I bought 4 books for my niece: “Time Stops For No Mouse” (detective mouse), “Sandry’s Book” (Tamora Pierce), and two of my childhood favorites, “The Twenty-One Balloons” and “The Westing Game.” Thanks again to everyone who had suggestions for my off-topic query.
John Revolta
@Dave C: So, if I ate a venomous snake or spider, I wouldn’t get poisoned? Sounds like poppy and cock to me.
Please advise cause I’m making dinner plans.
Brachiator
There was a link off the Warren story about the “concern” over too many Asians being Asian While Applying for college. A fun stat:
Of course, in the good old days, the elites were worried about the Jews:
I guess some of us have to learn lessons about tolerance all over again. And it’s interesting, though maybe coincidental, that once you get near 20 percent, some in the former majority start breaking into a sweat and getting nervous about a new group becoming too visible and prominent.
And a side note, concerning presidential election results.
With respect to one group, Indians, Obama got 84 percent of the vote.
I see this as not only rejecting the Republicans, but an aspirational vote about hope and the future.
donnah
Creepy. I don’t want critters popping out of any drains!
Had a scare this morning with our 13 year old dog Wendy. She was lying on the couch next to my son and suddenly she was craning her neck, her eyes were wild, and she was trembling. I thought she was having a stroke and had gone blind.
Rushed her to the vet and by then she was wobbly, but able to walk. The vet checked her out and said it wasn’t a stroke, but acute Idiopathic Vestibular Disease, which is like severe vertigo in people.
Fortunately, it’s supposed to be short-lived and may go away within 72 hours. The vet prescribed Dramamine, and so I gave her one, and three hours later, she’s much better. She has been eating and going outside to potty as normal, and her eyes aren’t crazy anymore.
The ver said she had a dog who went through this at age fourteen and lived to be seventeen, so hopefully this was just a bump in the road. We love our Girl!
Poopyman
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m impressed that some Republicans actually were opposed.
Not progress, but a slower regression than expected. Nonetheless, my pessimism progresses unabated.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): See what you can do with The Who’s ‘Slip Kid’ :-)
Paul in KY
@Cacti: She evidently thinks she made a mistake. Jeez, we always go after the Repubs who keep on digging. Wouldn’t you think she would now vote ‘no’, if she could re-do those votes?
jl
Should have asked it to sing. You might have hit the jackpot. Too late now.
One Froggy Evening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaZDhUxpFi4
Cacti
@Paul in KY:
No.
Elie
Two to three weeks ago, we had to roust a Mama starling from her growing nest in one of our air ducts/vents on the side of the house. We were able to get her in between broods (thankfully), and just in the nick of time, as she was well along in constructing nest #2.
We had a wildlife extractor who specialized in humane extractions do the work. He cleaned out the nest and disinfected it. Couldn’t do much with the significant amount of poo that got all over the siding under the vent. Apparently its pretty corrosive and pressure wash won’t do the trick. We will have to wash and then paint it.
In the process of checking out our attic above the garage, he found that we have a small (less than a half dozen) of small brown bats living there. We plan to leave them alone for now but will check back in a year to make sure we don’t have a growing colony that requires being removed. As long as they stay a small number, we are happy to have them.
All in all, we were pretty happy with the outcome for our birds and bats….
Tree With Water
@Cacti: She spelled out her reasons, and they were good ones. That makes all the difference, snide remarks about perpetual outrage aside.
fuckwit
@Brachiator: It used to be said that Bill Clinton was our first Black President. I don’t think that really holds water, but if it did, then Barack Obama is our first Asian President.
Obama was born in Hawaii, grew up in Indonesia, then spent his teenage years back in Hawaii.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: Forget it, Jake. It’s Georgiatown…
David in NY
@Cacti:
Of course, YOU wouldn’t think that. The question really was, wouldn’t a reasonable person think that — and the answer is, “Yes.”
Trying to trump up an issue where there isn’t any. Sheesh.
Paul in KY
@John Revolta: Have heard (but never tried) that you can eat cuare (poison made from tree frogs), but just a touch into your bloodstream kills you. Caveat: No ulcers in stomach/intestines.
Cacti
@David in NY:
Reasonable people don’t comment on political blogs.
David in NY
Cacti is too prickly. Keep your hands off him/her.
David in NY
@Cacti: Cacti is too prickly. Keep your hands off him/her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Repubilicans were, and probably still are, confused by those who pointed out that talking about birth certificates and understanding what it means to be a “real American” might offend some people. And Bill O’Reilly classic Archie-Bunker-in-an-expensive-suit moment “Why would Asians be liberals? They’re hard-working!”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Brachiator:
It turns out that when Republicans rant about “immigrants,” immigrants from all groups think they’re talking about them instead of assuming the R’s only mean those other immigrants over there. Who knew?
Paul in KY
@Cacti: Well I do. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree here.
Punchy
I really hope that frog laid some eggs in your sink, so that you’ll be washing your face with tadpoles in a few weeks. Of course, the ibis and egrets will come in unannounced to scoop up the tadpoles, which will in turn invite in the bobcats and panthers (perhaps Jagr and Luongo).
Good luck with that, food chain creator.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elie:
Little did you know when you took on that starling that you were confronting a dinosaur:
“Flying Dinosaurs: How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds”
I’m reading it right now and it’s a lot of fun. It seems to be aimed at about a high school level, but I haven’t taken a science class in 20 years, so I don’t mind. And, yes, a lot of paleontologists and biologists now flat-out refer to birds as dinosaurs and extinct dinos as “non-avian dinosaurs.” It’s pretty cool.
NotMax
Sinks can be cleaned?
Damnation, who knew? May try it sometime.
qwerty42
@Germy Shoemangler: Well, there is always the feared toilet snake
http://jezebel.com/man-finds-terrifying-venomous-snake-sticking-out-of-toi-1602789075
Cacti
Also too, I just wanted to give a shout out of NSFW epithets to the national anti-vaccination movement.
I just found out last night from my folks that my older brother has come down with Whooping Cough.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: I have tried cleaning the commode by urinating very hard. Someone had to try it…
Brachiator
@fuckwit:
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Yep. I remember reading that Obama referred to his grandmother as “toot,” or “tutu,” the Hawaiian word for grandmother. People with no imagination kept seeing Obama as a black Chicago politician (while strangely allowing Sarah Palin to be a wild gal from Alaska). But Obama is also a Pacific Islander, a native son of Hawaii.
And we are talking about the 2012 election here, not just 2008. Clearly, many Asians saw themselves, and the futures of their children in Obama.
Imagine that.
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
Vote to “repeal and replace” the Law of Gravity coming along any day now…
rikyrah
I would have freaked out….snake or frog.
shortstop
Ha, that actually is my sink — one of them, anyway. IKEA special.
Tree With Water
@Brachiator: “Bullshit”. That’s what my dead father would say to me were we able to commune, and after I told him that a black American, with a white mother, whose own father was Kenyan, was POTUS. Oh, and that his name was Barack Obama.
SiubhanDuinne
Some of you will know the name Margaret Juntwait. Since 2004 she has been the announcer for the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts — the famous Saturday afternoon transmissions as well as on the Met’s Sirius XM channel. She’s been absent quite a lot this season, and once or twice her capable subs would make a reference to her being “under the weather,” but the listening public had no idea that she was battling ovarian cancer.
She died this morning at age 57 or 58. Just a terrible loss to the opera world. May she rest in peace.
And fuck cancer.
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: Our kitchen has a lovely 800-lb Ikea farmhouse sink, but we haven’t gotten around to renovating the bathrooms. Probably never will since they’re functional if hideous, outdated and amphibian-infested.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: We recently finished our master bath. You may recall, since you talked me through my terrors at the time, that last year we did the kitchen. We are sooooooo done for a while. We bought this place for like five bucks knowing that everything would need renovation. It wasn’t that bad overall, and it’s really great to have things the way you want them, not the way the previous owners wanted them…but even so, glad it’s over.
Tree With Water
“It is unclear what a “possibly ISIS-inspired social media plot” really is”.
So says Charles Pierce at Esquire.com about the killing in Boston. To which I will add that whatever it is, it doesn’t hold a candle to the infamous Bush-Cheny plot to wage war in Iraq.
Tenar Darell
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): This is why wild geese scare me, they’re dinosaurs with wings and webbed feet! That, and they’re mean if you get near them walking on the footpaths around reservoirs.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Tutu in the Hawaiian language is unisex and refers to either grandparent (and not necessarily to someone in the role of grandparent by dint of kinship). Grandmother would be tutu wahine. Grandfather is tutu kane.
“Pacific Islander” as referred to in the voting percentages mentioned above is a racial designation used, for example, by the census. Generally, but not exclusively, includes those native to or with ancestry from indigenous peoples in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.
Obama may have been a Pacific island resident, but technically was not a Pacific Islander.
jame
@mtiffany:
That goes triple for me. That PS was the best part of the story.
NotMax
Ms. Cracker, presume your kitchen remodeling finally has finished? Remember pix of it in progress, but not of the splendiferous result.
bemused
@Tenar Darell:
Swans. Those huge white ones, Trumpeter? They scare the daylights out of me. No way would I even think of going near them let alone try to feed them.
Central Planning
@Betty Cracker:
Pics or it didn’t happen.
raven
@Betty Cracker: We slavaged a “farm sink” with the built in drain board and use it for a bathroom sink and counter with drawer built around it. We now have a big old chest of drawers with a mirror that is going to be the vanity for the new bathroom. I did a pretty good job of stripping the veneer and just await orders from the princess on the finish.
Brachiator
@Tree With Water:
I would like to think that if you could jump in a time machine and visit the founders, the one who would smile the most with satisfaction and amusement might be Ben Franklin.
When the 2008 campaign got underway, I recall one (mostly liberal) radio talk show host, wisely insisting that “America is not ready for a black president,” which I took to mean that he was not ready for a black president. And he has subsequently been sullen and resentful.
Another wise pundit insisted that the natural batting order would be, “first Jewish president, first woman president, and then maybe first black president.”
But the universe may incline towards the feminine, because reality is a b*tch.
NotMax
@raven
Tung oil works wonders.
Tree With Water
@Brachiator: The first thing that Tom Jefferson would surely wonder if it was one of his. The question would then be, would he be relieved or disappointed to find that out?
NotMax
@Tree With Water
Someone, sometime, must have researched how descendants of the founders sided during the Civil War and what actions, if any, they played a part in.
If not, it would be fascinating to map out.
Kay
I was trying to figure out why Bernie Sanders sounds so distinctive (not the accent, his speech) and he doesn’t use contractions. That’s what it is.
Valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne: oh that’s terrible. fuck cancer indeed.
@Kay: A few months ago there was a boomlet of stories about Kasich running for president. Many of our wise pundits said he would take it, he was the most dangerous one since he was a ‘moderate’ etc. Any rumours in Ohio about him running?
Elie
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Yes, I knew that but thanks for offering the info — They pretty much look like their progenitors when you look at them and discount their feathers. I love birds. I can do without the poo of a nest however. You have no idea how much poo. (they have a cloaca and no anal sphincter controlling when. The cloaca stores the pee and poo in one pouch and it comes out together whenever… I had a mama starling and at least four baby birds….
Tenar Darell
@bemused: They’re bigger, and maybe meaner, but it’s that flocking behavior… (I think I saw The Birds once too many times on Saturday afternoons as a youngster. There were advantages to living near a city growing up; VHF and UHF extra channels was one. But the Creature Double Feature was possibly a blessing and a curse).
Kay
@Valdivia:
No, although one of the newspapers is madly in love with him and begging him to run. The year he was elected I was at what I call the “Republican Lawyers Dinner Party” (because that’s what it is, although they don’t title the event ) and they were all telling me he would be President.
He could really wait a bit and see if/when Walker stumbles. He’s in a good position. Maybe the Bush donors would go over to him if Jebster doesn’t get better at this.
I still think it will be Jeb. It’s not like Romney where there really was no one else, that was easy to call, but the Bush’s are insanely competitive and also entitled. I just don’t see him giving up.
Valdivia
@Kay: I saw today a NoLabels quasi-endorsement of Kasich so I think if he jumps in he will get all the Village love plus the conservative love. Looks like his strategy just may be what you say since there’s too many clowns in the parade right now. Better to wait and see. August begin the debates so we shall see.
Germy Shoemangler
@Tree With Water:
Key and Peele had a funny bit about black people trying ancestry dot com.
lurker dean
wtf:
“Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/2014/07/14/the-secrets-behind-disneys-2-2-billion-theme-park-profits/
Elizabelle
@Valdivia: Yup. Kasich worries me. And he’s camera-tested and has been for cutting budget spending since he was a lad in Congress.
Can see him getting some Villager and “very serious person” love.
One of these creatures is not like the other in Kevin Drum’s zero chance category.
Kevin Drum: Why do so many obvious losers think they can be president?
muddy
@Kay: He very much emphasizes the “not” when he says it too, you can hear the caps. One thing that surprised me the first time I saw him in person is that he’s taller than I had thought. He gets to waving his arms when he’s really exercised, and he’s lanky so it’s like a condor flapping it’s wings. The energy coming off him is tremendous, too. You would never take him for an older person.
He is exactly like what he seems like and has always been that way. I know a lot of people that like him for that even though they hate his liberalism. It’s just damned refreshing is what it is. No bullshit, no negative needling, no whining. He’s all right there. I think this may be appealing to many who disdain politics because it’s fake.
I’m partial to curmudgeons.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle: Yep, he will be the darling of the media as a serious person, only moderate, will buck his party and all those juicy Village lines. Le sigh.
And that is a great link, thanks.
boatboy_srq
@lurker dean: This part is especially interesting:
Naturally the “outsource” doesn’t qualify as an H-1B event, since it’s not the employees coming to the US but the jobs going overseas. And the “replacements” are hardly the “high-skill labor” that’s being
depreciatedreplaced.It’s been going on for decades.
raven
@NotMax: Our floors are heart pine with oil instead of poly, good stuff.
cckids
@catclub:
I’ll raise you: my parents (live in tiny town in S. Nevada) found a rattlesnake in their dryer. Not funny at all. Screens immediately placed over the vent.
lurker dean
@boatboy_srq: the part about the replacements being unskilled labor, and forcing the fired employees to train them as a condition of severance, is what chaps me – something so sociopathic must be an MBA invention. we know mitt was a fan of the practice.
but my reading is that it does appear to be an h1b situation for jobs in the US, but disney isn’t directly employing the hires, they’re employees of the indian firm. or i may be completely misunderstanding what you’re saying, lol.
Elizabelle
@lurker dean: Yeah. That’s a horrifying story.
No matter how long it’s been going on.
It’s employers gaming the system, and it should stop.
I’d like to see Disney lose some serious business over this.
Brachiator
@NotMax: Cool clarification and expansion. Thanks much.
Have you ever lived in Hawaii? The other day, a radio host whose family lived in the islands noted that there was a distinction between non Asians. If you were the child of military personnel, you typically went to a base school. If you were the child of a resident or native, you went to an island school, and hung out (if you were cool), with other Hawaiians. And generally, you would kick the butts of the kids who were the military brats. I guess this was a kind of cross racial affiliation that had nothing to do with census designations of who was an official Pacific Islander. I note here that I don’t know how accurate or exaggerated this might be.
And of course, Obama had also lived in Indonesia, and his grandparents were not native Hawaiian even though they were part of the community.
Still, for various reasons, Asian Americans came out for massive numbers for Obama. That 84 percent of Indians would vote for him is very impressive.
lurker dean
@Elizabelle: there’s some activity on twitter for #boycottdisney. much of it is actually from the right, though there is some from the left. disney is in for some trouble if both sides are pissed about it.
Germy Shoemangler
Octopus decided to grab some cocoanut shells and walk/swim away with them. It’s eerie and disconcerting to see, at least that’s my reaction.
Elizabelle
@lurker dean: I hope so. If you have to make an example, why not start with Disney?
This “new normal” is poison.
Brachiator
@Tree With Water:
I think that Jefferson would be a hypocrite who would deny that it might be one of his.
I respect Jefferson as a founder, but despise him as a human being.
Bystander
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I wish Carrie Nye had lived long enough to do the audiobook of The Chronicles of Betty Cracker.
“He said it was a frog but I knew it was a snake poking his old head out of the drain pipe. I told him to whack it even though I knew it was a snake. So he whacked it and whacked it. And I liked it.”
Tree With Water
“Hillary Clinton will dive headlong into the voting rights wars with a speech Thursday at historically black Texas Southern University in Houston. In a preview of the speech, the Washington Post is reporting that Clinton will call for new laws guaranteeing at least 20 days of early voting nationwide. The move comes as Team Hillary shows other signs that it intends to make voting rights a priority of her campaign”.
Way to go, Team Hillary. If that doesn’t strike a chord, then our democracy is indeed as dead as Julius Caesar.
J R in WV
@John Revolta:
John,
If you cleaned and dressed a rattlesnake properly, you could eat it safely, assuming all other food prep rules were followed. I’m not sure how you would propose to clean a spider properly, I just wouldn’t / couldn’t go there.
But snakes, sure.
Poisonous frogs, though, can’t be made safe, as their bodies create and exude the poisons that are so dangerous. Snake venom is in the glands and tubes and teeth, not throughout their bodies. I’ve actually seen canned rattlesnake for sale at novelty food shops.
The poisonous frogs on exhibit at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, on the other hand, are a deadly as they are beautiful, brightly colored to warn predators that here lies certain death, if you just touch me. But so colorful and beautiful, and the more dangerous, the brighter and more beautiful.
Dolly Llama
Ms. Cracker, I know this thread’s as dead as any inanimate object can be, but I love your posts.
Kay
@muddy:
I really like it too. I used to worry about him because when he gets worked up it sounds like he forgets to breathe. The same thing happens to me! I feel like I’m going to faint :)
I bet he’s all light-headed at these rallies. If he topples over it will be very bad because you say he’s tall. I don’t have that far to fall. He’d be like a tree falling.
boatboy_srq
@lurker dean: The article definitively states that the replacements are an outsource, so Disney isn’t using H-1B to scr3w its employees directly here; but the contractor is definitely India-based, and the implication of the article is that the contractor sent its people to Disney to learn the ropes and take that knowledge back. You may be right – but the flight-plus-accommodation would be cheaper for the contractor to cover than the cost-of-living adjustment required, so it’s at least as likely. Either way, though, this s#cks, in no small part because it’s gaming the visa system to cut costs and offshore jobs in the name of short-term profits.
The “train your replacement” piece is a common thread in these situations. Disney is actually doing better than most here: the most common story I’ve heard is an “employee retraining” assignment that morphs into “train your replacement” at the end instead of the beginning.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@lurker dean:
I was not surprised to see which division did that. At all. There’s something sociopathic in that part of the company, and the scary part is that the head of that division seems to be on the fast track to become CEO. Hopefully some bad publicity can derail that.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, too, a brief diversion about what counts as outsourcing — when you get into companies that are truly multinational, the lines can get quite blurred. The Giant Evil Corporation moved the majority of its normal purchasing functions to India — but they’re all employees of the Giant Evil, not contractors. So is that outsourcing or not?
lurker dean
@boatboy_srq: i see what you’re saying. i wasn’t thinking of “outsource” by its technical meaning of sending US jobs elsewhere, i was just thinking of it by a more general meaning relating to immigrants taking jobs, whether it’s here or there, even though that’s not technically correct. now that i read it the correct way, the article becomes confusing, to me at least. but yeah, neither way is good.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Have you checked out the reader comments on the NYTimes piece? Bad publicity abounds. To be seen whether Disney takes a financial hit on this.
lurker dean
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): yikes!
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
It does make a big difference within the company which divisions are doing well financially and which ones aren’t. A general “Disney boycott” wouldn’t do much, but one targeted to that division might actually help. Maybe.