ETA (why not):
Went to the gym, did some grocery shopping. Should go spray Serenade on the tomato plants, but now it’s looking like we might get those ‘scattered showers’ (& nothing brings rain as predictably as spraying the garden, not even washing the car).
What’s up in your neighborhood?
Bill
Thanks. I always love to hear Emmylou.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Been pretty lazy, except for doing laundry. We wonder now how we ever got by without an in-unit washer and dryer. We can do laundry whenever we want! And we don’t have to get dressed and leave the apartment!
We’ll be going out to dinner later once G makes up his mind since it’s his turn to pick. It’s over 100 outside, so he needs to choose wisely.
raven
Decided on Trespa for a kitchen countertop. It’s actually lab type stuff but out builder used it on other houses and all the owners like it!
dr. luba
Light gardening–trimmed out a bunch of bloomed perennials, and pulled up a bunch of weeds. That’s what you have to do when you go away for five weeks. No one else out in the neighborhood–too damn hot, but I have a head cold and don’t mind….or don’t notice. Not sure which.
I hope to stay up past 9 pm tonight–jet lag is a biotch.
(I should note propitious timing on my part coming home….the war seems to be heating up again in the east. If Bob in Portland were around, I’m sure he could explain to me how it is the fault of my Nazi friends and family and not that of God’s chosen leader, Putin.)
Betty Cracker
Finally found a game on the iPad that is very similar to old school Super Mario Bros (Lep’s World). It’s driving me batty, though. Waiting on dough to rise to put together a Chicago-style pizza.
@raven: Looks nice! Sometimes I regret our choice of butcher block wooden countertops. It’s beautiful and so homey, but a pain in the arse to maintain.
Phylllis
Watching the PGA. Braves on tap for later. Fixing to go pick up a pizza. Lazy, quiet Saturday, just the kind I like.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: It’s not granite, but we’ll be by to inspect it anyway.
TheMightyTrowel
Just back from Berlin and spent the whole week back moving house. Oy. Had some good luck with the second hand furniture websites though: solid wood kitchen island with granite top for $300!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Bill: Then here’s one for ya: So Far Away.
MattF
@BillinGlendaleCA: I chose granite for my bathroom countertops. Clean it with Windex. End of maintenance story.
currants
Thundering loudly, occasional sprinkles but nothing serious (yet).
Working on a g.d. paper for a conference. Will never EVER EVER EVER spend a summer doing this again. EVER.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (tablet): The wife want’s to split my second King Taco burrito, I told her it’s a bit too small for two. I’d be happy with In-n-Out and she can have the burrito.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MattF: We’ll be stopping by to inspect that.
ETA: Or do countertop inspections only apply to kitchens?
geg6
Lazily did laundry today. Making tacos, rice and a salad that is basically pico de gallo with lettuce and avocado. Have Real Time recorded from last night, so that’s what we’ll watch after dinner.
I have decided that Lovey is a trouble magnet. She is just constantly into everything because she’s so curious. This week, she ate so much basil from my basil plant on the deck that she got sick. Today, John had some roofing tar that he uses to waterproof an area under the deck and somehow she found some to step in (she can’t get to where he sealed, but she found some somewhere) and I now have it all over my clothes and the sunroom floor. Little tiny paw print sized. Koda never does this shit. Koda is perfect. Lovey is loveably flawed.
JPL
@raven: Very nice. I do like the look of it.
MattF
@BillinGlendaleCA: Hmm. My kitchen countertops are some sort of composite… so I’m probably still acceptably middle-class.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
some good news, even if there’s still a ways to go
Corey Booker came on board yesterday, which wasn’t a sure thing, I think,
ETA: and looking at the WaPo’s page for the whip count, I see this, which I won’t bother clicking on
Lieberman: Congress, block the Iran agreement
gogol's wife
Reading Crime and Punishment (in Russian) all day again today. Surprisingly enjoyable in 95 degree weather, as long as you have A/C.
danielx
Cursing myself for going to the state fair yesterday (not to disappoint the daughter yesterday) and overdoing things two weeks after minor surgery. (And overdoing things work-wise during the past week.) I knew better and did it anyway, as with my spouse, who is nursing a torn meniscus and going to see a sports medicine doc next week. In her case the reward is serious pain dealt with through ice packs and various scripts, in mine….no serious pain to speak of, but christ jesus blood and blood clots are a really lousy way to begin the weekend. Not to mention having to take time off work from a contract that I’ve been working on for months that was within a week of being finished. Just one of those times when you have to sit down at the counter and wait for your piping hot shit sandwich….and to add to the fun, my bod is rebelling against the garbage I ate at the fair, which as far as I’m concerned is the main reason to go to the state fair. Although it is interesting seeing all the visitors to white trash heaven.
Grrrrrrrr.
Suzanne
@MattF: You better seal that granite periodically.
I am planning to redo my kitchen in 2 years or so, and it’ll be quartz for me. IANAinterior designer, but I work with lots of them, and that’s what they all pick out.
We went and worked out this morning. My arches are really hurting during my weightlifting. I think I might need some insoles. My shoes feel great for running, but are miserable when I’m lifting. Then I dyed my hair. Getting ready to go to my friend’s house for game night tonight, where I am going to play D&D for the first time ever.
Mary G
Very hot for here (88, yes I am a spoiled baby) and I am feeling like a chewed string. I need to water everything after a nap. Went out for Chinese food for lunch, with enough left over to bring home and did some other errands. No excitement for me. I did get my broken CPAP machine replaced this week and will be much less grumpy shortly.
Suzanne
@MattF: Solid surface, a la Corian or Staron? That’s nice. Better than granite, actually.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G:
My outdoor thermometer said it was 114.
Schlemazel
@raven: SPiffy, looks sort of like soapstone which I really like.
PurpleGirl
I hear some strange sounds — something metal being pulled down. And some chirping type sounds. Huh??? Sounds are coming from my headphones and I didn’t turn off the sound at John Bartlett’s kitten room the last time I looked at the cam. It’s Nala Se (the momcat, a Siamese) and her kittens playing at the fence in the room. Nala Se is jumping over the fence. She’s also talking to her kittens. It’s jarring sometimes to have these sounds coming from wherever.
sharl
@raven: Those phenolic resin-based materials for laboratory bench tops were very welcome replacements for the traditional slate tops I grew up with as a young chemdork. Slate is very resilient and highly inert to chemical attack, but when the time came to renovate or clear out a lab…yikes, slate is SO HEAVY! There are a lot of heavy moving jobs I’d do on my own, but I’ve always given slate a lot of respect, bearing in mind what it would do to my fingers or toes if it got away from me.
I don’t know what brand we have in the labs, but our version seems to take a beating pretty well. Hope your experience is the same!
Zinsky
I think Emmylou Harris is one of the most beautiful, mature women in the wiorld. She also has a voice that must make the Angels in heaven jealous. I have seen her four or five times live and loved her every time!
Going out to our favorite Thai restaurant with two of our three grown children. Yum yum!
Schlemazel
Been running errands and packing, have an eary flight to San Fransico tomorrow & a week by the bay for work. The perk is Mrs. Schlemazel has decided to tag along. In all the traveling I have done she has never been able to go with. I have begged her to vacation in N CA. but she has never been excited about the idea. She’ll have to fend for herself during the day but we have plenty planned & I hope to sneak out early a couple of days to make it better.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
It made “reading” into a gerund and said I was reading it “in Russia,” which thank the Lord I am not.
But other than that . . . .
Suzanne
@sharl: The very best lab countertops are copper. But SPENDY!
Anne Laurie
@raven: Kewl. We ever redo our kitchen (which desperately needs it, cuz it was landlord’s-basic when it was installed back in the 1950s), I’ve got your link bookmarked. Our countertops need to be resistant to water, hot pans, dropped knives, dog paws (they’re little, we bathe them in the sink), small-machinery tinkering, garden tool ‘storage’, and most of all… neglect!
Suzanne
@Anne Laurie: Get quartz if you can swing it. Brand names are Zodiaq, SileStone, etc.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Working my way through Part II, trying address the big issues. I’ve got a couple of scenes to add. Once I’m done with that, I start the job of pruning it, with a goal of eliminating 50 words per page. That’s an average, though, so when I cut a whole scene, it can count for a lot of that.
Oh, yeah, and I’ll be responding to alarms as they go off. Hopefully, it’s really quiet.
sharl
@Suzanne: That’s interesting! What kind of labs use those, i.e., what kind of research is done (clinical/medical, chemical, etc.)? I don’t remember ever seeing copper bench tops, but cost may explain that. Copper is relatively inert compared to many metals, but nitric acid and ammonia will do damage to varying degrees, depending on specific situations. Also, a lot of electrochemical and corrosion-related work is done where I work, and I imagine they’d freak at the mere possibility of lots of surface-exposed copper near their set-ups (even though proper electrical and physical isolation would likely be a trivial matter).
MattF
@Suzanne: I think it’s Corian, actually.
schrodinger's cat
Happy Birthday, India. Thoughts on the 68th anniversary of booting the British out for good.
The post also has a link to an instrumental rendition of India’s national anthem. I am not the biggest of fan of India’s national anthem but this is definitely one of the better versions.
Anne Laurie
@Suzanne: We got something that “nice”, the Spousal Unit (Virgo, very Virgo) would rope off the kitchen & never let anybody in, not even himself.
We need a compromise between “nice enough I can stand to look at them”, “cheap enough he can stand to pay for them”, and “tough enough that nobody will attempt a murder/suicide after the first kitchen disaster”. Fortunately, it’s a tiny kitchen, so we won’t need a whole lot of countertop in any case!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Sigh. Right now, I’m looking at a place where I describe something Phoebe does, and basically left a parenthetical that said, “Insert example here.” Now it’s time to actually come up with the example.
Suzanne
@sharl: Copper is ideal for medical labs (which I design) because it kills many kinds of harmful bacteria through contact. It’s much better than stainless steel in that regard. If the surfaces get scratched, and they do OFTEN, bacteria get in the scratches and aren’t always killed by cleaning solutions or wipe-downs. But again….SPENDY.
PurpleGirl
@Suzanne: In one of the conference rooms at The Wigwam resort (‘Authentic Arizona!’) there is a long conference table with a copper base. It’s beautiful, sort of shaped like a wave. My then law firm held an arbitration hearing at The Wigwam back in 1990. This table was where the arbitration panelists sat, like a judge’s bench.
danielx
On the other hand it’s a beautiful evening with the land dreaming under the summer sun, I brought my spiffy shockproof work boombox home from work, and am going to plug in the ibox and listen to Layla from beginning to end while lying in the hammock on the back porch and reading HMS Surprise. If you’re going to rest, rest in style.
Yes, I am easily amused and entertained.
Suzanne
@MattF: Corian is good stuff. Scratches can be easily buffed out. And it takes a lot of abuse.
I always laugh when the granite countertop discussion comes up, because I hate stone or concrete countertops for anything having to do with kitchens or bathrooms. Stone is fine for decorative or serving surfaces, but not for work surfaces, due to its porosity. I see granite or marble countertops and I immediately know that’s someone who doesn’t actually use their kitchen.
Phylllis
@efgoldman: Mmm, Chinese. Maybe for lunch tomorrow.
Suzanne
@PurpleGirl: I love copper stuff. It,s so beautiful.
raven
This stuff is a compromise. We have a big island with granite but with all the other overruns this will have to do. Up until this afternoon we were going to stay with the formica we have.
Peale
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: like that time she put salt in her sister’s goldfish bowl?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: I have black granite countertops and can’t wait till I can afford to replace them, though I can tell you after five or six years they seem to have survived abuse and neglect.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: 5-6 years isn’t that long. And if they’re dark, you wouldn’t see stains that might show up in lighter colors, if you had wine spills or something.
raven
@Suzanne: Trespa
Features and Benefits:
Resistant to bacteria and fungi
UV resistant and able to withstand significant exposure to sunlight
Easily disinfected and cleaned
Non-porous surface for outstanding chemcial resistance
Available in silver, black and gray with a black core
jon
Emmylou and some Swedish women.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: that five or six years is me, I think the counters were put in around 2000, but since the people I bought the place from had a “Please Remove Your Shoes” sign on the front door, I’m guessing they took good care of them.
Joel
All the ink spilled on Trump and no one makes the obvious comparisons to Silvio Berlusconi and Thaksin Shinawatra?
Anne Laurie
@Joel: I’ve seen lots of Berlusconi/Trump comparisons in the media/on twitter. Not sure if Thaksin is considered “too esoteric”, or if Western journalists worry it would be politically incorrect to bring him up…
shell
Hmm, HBO has a new movie tonight that Ive actually heard of.
Had softshell crabs for dinner. Was a little surprised to see them in the supermarket; thought they may have been out of season. Texture was a bit firm so they might have been previously frozen, but still,….dellish!
divF
@Suzanne: Granite has held up well in the fifteen years we’ve had it, although I admit that we have a six-foot long stainless steel table on locking casters that I bring up from the garage for when I’m doing a big event. It is nice having a large slab of stone for making pastry – homemade puff pastry is kind of a house specialty.
Madame and I are trying to find ways of beating the heat – 90 degrees and smoke from the wildfires here in NorCal. Our bedroom has a window unit AC, otherwise no refuge short of going to the movies.
SiubhanDuinne
@Peale:
Mmmmm, kipper snacks.
VFX Lurker
Trying to catch SHAUN THE SHEEP in its second week before it leaves theaters entirely. There’s next to no evening shows for a “kid’s movie,” darn it.
Litlebritdifrnt
I have been looking at houses in the UK with a “Househunters” theme running through my head. I am now to the point where I don’t give a shit about granite countertops or stainless appliances. If I can get an affordable house where I can host Sunday dinners for my whole family I am golden.
shell
On TCM, Prisoner of Zenda, the version with Douglas Fairbanks.
Roger Moore
@raven:
I’ve been strongly considering slate for countertops, which is what Trespa is imitating. Slate is traditional for chemistry labs because it’s non-porous and both chemically and thermally resistant.
divF
@shell:
Also C. Aubrey Smith and Raymond Massey. Plus the TV room in the basement is much cooler than the rest of the house.
ETA: Plus Ronald Coleman IIRC. Pencil-thin moustaches abound.
Gimlet
Rocky Mount United Methodist Church decided what to do with the gully behind their church–they built a gun range and launched a gun range ministry “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Rocky Mount United Methodist is located in Jemison, Alabama. They named the range the “Rocky Mount Hunt and Gun Club.”
“We had quite a number of church members, some elderly ladies, for example, and some not so elderly women that had purchased guns, but didn’t know how to use them.” They can now learn on church grounds.
Standing by the range, Guin said, “This is an opportunity for us to reach out in the name of Jesus Christ in a setting that is completely unique.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
Slate does require maintenance. I had slate in my old farmhouse but it wasn’t treated. They were beautiful though.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: And David Niven and Mary Astor. It’s an all around winner.
Cacti
From the great orange satan, when MLK appeared on Meet the Press in 1960, here’s the first question he was asked:
I’m confused. I thought MLK was beloved by white liberals because his methods were so gosh darned respectable. Not like those unruly BLM activists.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: How could I forget Mary Astor !!
sharl
@Anne Laurie: Billmon compared Trump to William Randolph Hearst, via the latter’s fictional version Charles Foster ‘Citizen’ Kane.
ETA/Note – Billmon goes on to list a total of 16 tweets on this topic (at last count).
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
Depends on what you’re working on. I would not want copper benchtops because copper is insufficiently acid resistant.
BobS
Iris Dement & Emmylou
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: It’s okay. I remembered for you.
Gimlet
@Cacti:
Was this just before MLK took the microphone from Spivak and declared the show was now his?
sukabi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: yeah, funny story… Joe Lieberman took over that position in that anti Iran deal group recently, AFTER the guy that was running it QUIT, because he now supports the deal, says it’s the best deal that could have been made.
PaulW
1) I am rooting for the Bucs, but I am not rooting for Jameis.
2) Just read most of this article on the failure of Pinellas County schools to keep the poor schools in black neighborhoods adequately funded and staffed, to the point where they are now the worst in the nation. The school board intentionally desegregated in 2007… and guess what happens when the institution tasked to make things work develop a racist blind spot? Rage does not begin to describe how I feel about the school system I graduated from in ’88. http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2015/investigations/pinellas-failure-factories/5-schools-segregation/
Cacti
@Gimlet:
Even worse, he hurt the feelings of an “old friend of the negro” like Harry Truman.
Obviously MLK didn’t know who his allies were.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sukabi: I saw that at TPM, Gary Samore. Which one do you think is more likely to be on a Sunday Show– though I suspect the Sunday show audience has already made up its borgy mind.
When I googled Lieberman to double check the guy’s name, one of the stories that came up was Lieberman replacing Joe Manchin at “No Labels”. I guess there’s also such a thing as Radical Centrist Welfare. Doesn’t roll off the tongue or keyboard, though.
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: Not chemistry lab, that would be a disaster.
Mike J
@Cacti: Don’t forget what hip hop troublemaker Freddie D had to say:
Gimlet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wiki “No Labels”
The inaugural meeting of No Labels was held in 2010 at a home in Houston, Texas,[3] and the organization was officially launched six months later in New York City.[3][9]
Over 1,000 people representing all 50 states gathered at the launch conference.[10] The event featured a lineup of speakers and panelists consisting of elected officials, journalists, and business leaders, including Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Antonio Villaraigosa; Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Joe Manchin; Reps. Bob Inglis and Mike Castle; former Rep. Tom Davis; Gov. Charlie Crist; Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado; David Brooks; Joe Scarborough; Mika Brzezinski; and David Gergen.
Baud
@Mike J:
And after reading that, the lunch of the nation must be hurled.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: And I would run screaming away from copper (or any metal) because …electrical conductive.
We actually use hardwood for a lot of our lab benches (butcherblock tabletops, that sort of thing). The ones that have messy chemicals in use get covered with what are essentially very heavy duty sheets of wax paper that get ripped up and replaced when they’re too dirty. Bonus: you’re never short of a convenient writing surface when you need to scrawl a diagram or note.
MattF
@BobS: More Iris, Let The Mystery Be.
Gimlet
@Mike J:
Sounds like “Festivus”
MattF
@Gimlet: David Brooks, Joe Lieberman, David Gergen are ‘no labels’? Ha ha.
Baud
@Gimlet:
Gillibrand is the only one that was not expected.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gimlet: Disappointed in Gillibrand, but she’s the only surprise on that list
Jon Huntsman is so devoted to “No Labels” and bipartisanship he’s listed among the six-figure donors to Jeb’s super pac
Speaking of Iris Demint and Russian literature, this album sounds really interesting
Another Holocene Human
@TheMightyTrowel: Hope your home is well-ventilated.
Another Holocene Human
@Suzanne: I agree. I think high quality composites get a bad rap. Maybe it’s because people grew to hate some of the patterns.
Even the dreaded Formica. Yegods, that stuff is durable. Too durable, it outlasts the chipboard it’s glued to. (True, you can scratch or stain it if you try hard enough.)
Another Holocene Human
@PurpleGirl: Siamese vocalizations are quite unnerving to me.
My own DSH makes some very odd sounds at times.
Mike J
@Baud: Most people think Frederick Douglas was pretty cool.
Mike G
The Closing of the Canadian Mind
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article
NYT article on the Bushification of our good neighbor to the north. Secrecy, authoritarianism, corruption, suppression of voting, suppression of science.
Baud
@Mike J:
Ha. I thought you were saying it was Freddie DeBoer. Frederick Douglass is entitled to some lofty rhetoric.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Not if you clean it properly.
jacel
I was very glad to see my representative announced she would vote in favor of the Iran agreement. I hope others considering voting No take a good look at her reasons for voting Yes.
http://speier.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1761:congresswoman-speier-statement-on-support-for-iran-nuclear-deal-2&catid=20&Itemid=14
Another Holocene Human
@PaulW: That story is just shocking in the extreme.
I thought all that teach the test testing regime big money test high stakes test test test was supposed to argle bargle makes schools better so magic fairy dust a school system couldn’t get away with what Pinellas just did?!
Do you … do you mean Jeb Bush lied to me?
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: Truman in this vignette sounds suspiciously like Atticus Finch in Go Set A Watchman.
MattF
@jacel: Yeah, mine too (Van Hollen). Which is interesting, since the district has a pretty high Jewish population.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Don’t we all?
Another Holocene Human
@Mike G: Are there any Canadian articles on this, or does Single Media Outlet not allow that?
Last few times I spent any serious time with random Canadians there was a lot of bitching about immigrants, which rather surprised me.
And their economy is in the shitter (again).
Gimlet
Trump
Immigration
“If you look back, everybody, most of the Democrats, they desperately wanted the wall built. They liked the concept of a wall,” he said. “But they couldn’t get it built. You know one of the reasons they couldn’t build it? The environmental impact statements. They couldn’t get through because of the environment.
Taxes
“There is $2.5 trillion of money outside the country that they want to bring back but they don’t want to pay a 35 percent tax. You wouldn’t do it. So, they go out to get [a lower rate] and move the company out,” he added. “Inversion is a huge subject and [President] Obama has done nothing about it.
Schlemazel
@Gimlet:
WWJS?
What would Jesus shoot?
Thus endeth our read for the day rAmen
MattF
@Schlemazel: So, when you’re pointing a gun at someone, that’s the time to make a long speech, specifically insulting the person you’re pointing the gun at. I’ll have to remember that, and also teach that to all the church ladies, just in case.
PurpleGirl
@Another Holocene Human: I sometimes forget I have the sound on at the cam sites and I hear voices or the cats coming from the headphones. I’d read that Nala Se talked to her kittens but I hadn’t heard her yet. Then suddenly there she is… I watch the cams through Google Chrome so I had minimize FireFox and open Chrome and all through this there is Nala talking to her kittens.
redshirt
Happy Birthday India!
Please don’t rape anyone during your celebration!
MattF
@efgoldman: I’d have thought he’d shoot a 9.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen on twitter that some reporters are being assigned and/or taking it upon themselves to read Trump’s books. Francis Berry read Jim Webb’s, so now we don’t have to:
Webb is also an evolution skeptic. I’m glad he ran when he did, appreciate what I suspect were tough votes on the Stimulus and ACA. Now I think Jim Webb can retire.
divF
@efgoldman: But even God can’t hit a one-iron.
Another Holocene Human
@efgoldman: Texas is being left in the dust.
redshirt
@divF: I’ve heard the same about Jesus and a gap wedge.
JPL
What’s up in my neighborhood.. It appears that a developer has been purchasing fifties style houses on large lots, on the street that I exit my neighborhood on. He or they now have 21 acres and want the land rezoned to allow 113 units. The zoning now is single family, 2/3rd acres per house.
Also, as if the day couldn’t get any better, a federal style house about 3000 sq ft recently sold. It’s two doors down from me. The new neighbors want to paint the brick light blue.
currants
@currants: 2″ of rain and a 50 min INTENSE thunder/lightning storm from 6:30-7:20, and the thunder and lightning continue (but rain has stopped, and temps have mercifully dropped).
JPL
@Cacti: You understand that Reagan is now a saint for cutting taxes, balancing the budget and leaving us with a surplus… Right
Mike J
@currants: Past two days we had thunderstorms. Thunder-fucking-storms. In Seattle.
It may drizzle steadily from October to May, but it doesn’t rain in Seattle in the summertime. And it certainly doesn’t thunderstorm. Loud enough to make me jump, and I grew up in the south, where they DO have thunderstorms. I’m expecting tornadoes next. I may have to move to Juneau to get the PNW weather I want.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Poppycock.
He keeps trying to make this big hay about ethnic distinctions in the South, but it’s crap. It’s nothing but a just-so story. The real tiers among whites have always been class distinctions. Ethnicity has been eagerly rubbed off by those who would move up the class ladder. The South had plenty of Catholics and Jews but where are they now (but for the Northern transplants)? What about its Arab immigrants? Its Finns? What about its mixed race people living as quietly as possible in remote hollers? They’re all passing, passing for white. (DNA tests are pissing off a LOT of people these days, is my point.)
The old observation that religious preferences among Southern whites were tied to income was spot on. (From Baptist to Presbyterian to Methodist to Episcopalian.)
Here’s what I think about Southern Populism: Blackshirts. They printed and distributed leaflets during the Depression claiming that white men couldn’t get a fair break because Negros were taking their jobs (for a lower wage).
These stuck on stupid shitheads have never figured out what even the most hidebound racist trade unionists in the North figured out which is that the wage is the wage is the wage or someone will always being taking your job (for a lower wage).
And if it weren’t for non-citizen, tied-to-employer, abusive guestworker programs, that theory would still hold.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: Heh, if that had happened in my parents’ hood I would have been happy. Also more bus patrons so maybe they would expand service instead of cutting it all the time.
Instead we got GINORMO houses to fill the lot, often 3 stories tall with peaked roofs. One took a modest house down to the foundation, poured more concrete and whoosh! The Motel 6 was born. That much siding with nothing to break it up just looks wrong.
We did get some “character”, though, when some wag built an octagonal house with a cupola.
Before the housing bubble, our neighborhood was so cookie cutter (late 40s, still treated cars like an afterthought, houses faced sidewalks) that it was infrequently dubbed “Levittown”.
Another Holocene Human
@redshirt: That’s in truly bad taste.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Archer mini-marathon on FXX.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: I hear he had a pet unicorn as well.
Debbie
@PaulW:
NPR interviewed one of the reporters tonight. Don’t know if this is Bush’s or Scott’s doing, but it is shameful. Between this and NYT’s article on Amazon, tomorrow should be pretty depressing.
Another Holocene Human
@efgoldman: In Florida the state has an obligation under the state constitution to fund the schools. Nevertheless, Rick Scott and his Republican De–Struct-Oh crew have cut, cut, cut.
Some counties have made up the cuts.
Some haven’t.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I’m sure it was delicious.
gogol's wife
@divF:
She’s gorgeous in that movie. As always.
J R in WV
We went to a lakeside picknick this afternoon, and just got home. Lots of good food, friends getting together, some went swimming or kayaking, other just sat and talked. A couple of beers, held off on the margaritas in order to drive home in twilight.
Lots of deer, one buck with 8 points in velvet, pretty. I also saw a Great Blue Heron glide across the lake to land beside it – looked like he was sliding in for the night.
People we’ve known for 30 years, mostly. One guy helped build our house back in 1991-2, and his daughter was in town, she’s moving from Chicago to Vermont and stopped here for a week. Potluck, I took potato salad in vinegar and oil dressing with red onions, celery and minced pickled beets, and cold cuts with fresh bread.
Very pretty place, a little lake partly flood control and partly recreation, which is why there’s a lake front park with canoes and kayaks, free to use, just call and make a reservation. Very rural county, badly needed rec area.
Unfortunately the fish are plentiful, but shouldn’t be eaten; there are high levels of selenium and other metals from a mountaintop removal strip mine in the headwaters of the little river, which concentrate in the fish. Part of why a flood control dam is a good idea…
JPL
@Another Holocene Human: The road won’t handle high density building.
My neighborhood was developed in the eighties and the lots were sold to different builders so no two look alike. There are only thirty houses and no HOA which allows someone to paint their brick light blue. It’s common in Texas to paint brick, which is where the new neighbors are from but light blue, really.
raven
Dang , we just watched the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Not what we expected.
Randy P
Loving the Wonkette feed today (as every day). It was via BJ that I found out Wonkette exists, and it’s a big part of my daily reading now.
My favorite things in the current feed: (1) Bible expert Pat Robertson doesn’t even know there’s a Book of Leviticus and (2) the fact that NASA is using names like Cthulhu, Vulcan, and Mordor to name features on Pluto and Charon (scroll about halfway down).
Actually everything on that last link is pretty cool. I like the red-hot-nickel on jawbreaker action too.
raven
@J R in WV:I posted it after you left but I wonder if it wasn’t Oglethorpe and not Emory that fired Don West?
Lamh36
On TNT…Olympus Has Fallen…On FX…White House Down…wait won’t this cause a rift in the space time continuum?
Anne Laurie
@currants: In our neighborhood, we got the dark sky, an ominous rumble or two, and just enough of a drizzle for a few minutes to drive the hydrophic Spousal Unit/dogs indoors. But if I’d sprayed, after all…
J R in WV
@raven:
I was pretty sure Emory, but it was back in the 1970s that I knew him. He founded an Appalachian Folklife Center in Pipestem WV and taught at Antioch College’s Appalachian Center in Beckley, which only lasted a few years. I could have mis-remembered which prestigious southern university threw him out. It could have been Oglethorpe is what I’m saying. I’ll ask around some and let you know what I learn.
He was a good teacher, and ticked me off once because he told me I earned an “A” but he only worked with pass/fail, so I passed. Once that would have been enough for me, but by then Don had inspired me to strive for better than just a pass.
He went to Maryland after he left Emory (IIRC, perhaps Oglethorpe) and they saved one salary for 10 years and lived on the other, and bought 600 acres of gently rolling land in Pipestem, which was a good productive working farm AND a center where they would bring in kids and teach them their history, and how their ancestors had worked their land.
I admired him a great deal. He once loaned a fellow student a good bit of money, and then R— disappeared with it, back to Kentucky presumably. Don was a little disappointed, but resigned to sometimes losing out on those loans.
Then a few years later R— turned up, repaid Don with interest from money he earned working with horses in the Kentucky horse country. Don was as tickled as I had ever seen him, having resigned himself to making a mistake on R—‘s character, then to have his faith in R— restored. He smiled all day I was with him.
He was maimed in Harlan County Kentucky in the 1930s (guessing on the dates) trying to organize the miners there, left in a ditch to die, found by a sympathetic passer-by who took him home, got him warm, kept him fed and hidden until he recovered from the beating. And none of that ever stopped him – a man of iron constitution.
Amazing that you know of him, really! For all the work he did he isn’t famous at all, the opposite, really.
rikyrah
@Lamh36:
I love both.
Juju
@Suzanne: Thank you for pointing that out. Granite and marble especially, are pretty countertops, but not really good for cooking. There is way too much maintenance with stone.
I have a Corian that looks like a stone, and a butcher block island. The butcher block is not treated in any way and I have had it since 1981. It still looks great and is nearly indestructible. It is also perfect for pastry making. The only thing I’d want marble or granite for is candy making, but so far I’ve managed without a candy slab. I’ve had the Corian since ’96 and it still looks great. I’d go look at a high school science lab before I would choose the lab countertop for my kitchen. It is good for heat, but if you use bleach, abrasive cleansers, or look at it wrong you get a haze on it that never comes off and can’t be buffed off. In the high school labs I’ve been in the lab countertop always feels dirty as well. The lab stuff does look nice when it’s new.
Juju
@geg6: Lovey is a puppy. She’ll outgrow that sort of stuff in 2-5 years depending on training.
apocalipstick
@MattF: Jesus don’t wanna make the other three guys feel bad.
apocalipstick
Worth pointing out that’s Buddy Miller in the first video with Emmy Lou. He’s amazing.
sharl
@Suzanne: Ah, I should have figured that copper’s biocidal properties might make it attractive to the medical community. Among other things, it’s an algicide and a molluskicide (sp?), and copper compounds are used for swimming pool treatments and underwater ship hull coatings, respectively.
The business/market side of the areas I’m involved with are heavily influenced by commodity prices, and when China started developing in a big way (maybe 20 years ago?), stuff like steel, copper, and even the fixin’s for concrete (cement and aggregate) began getting scarcer, and the price started to go up accordingly. China’s economy has slowed recently, but I doubt that will make copper (and other commodities) less expensive. I’m not an expert on commodity prices though, so could certainly be wrong about that.