Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

T R E 4 5 O N

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

All hail the time of the bunny!

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Let there be snark.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Shiny Friday Night Open Thread

Shiny Friday Night Open Thread

by | 59 Comments

This post is in: 

https://youtu.be/b7uRxbl0Jzk

JeffreyW has picked up my habit of posting favorite songs on our blog, so I’m shamelessly stealing this from him tonight. There is no recipe thread, I was swamped with work and today Bixby and I played hooky with friends. We took advantage of the great weather and spent the day outside. (ETA: we must have worn him out because he is sleeping beside me, snoring away, it’s a disturbing sound)

I’ll continue the Authors in Our Midst series tomorrow, I think you’ll really like the books and the authors should be available for Q&A.

Watched the Ray Charles – In Performance at The White House on PBS tonight (h/t David whatever Koch). It was great, you can stream it here. Great music and the visuals were stunning.

Shiny open thread for you. Talk amongst yourselves….

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    Well now that I have my own kitchen again, there should be some new recipes coming together. I’m working on a vegetarian/vegan alternative to chicken soup for a couple of friends who have needed it. I think I have the formulation down just need to actually put the pieces together consistently. Don’t help the water was shut off in my building for 3 days.

  5. 5.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: Good thoughts from Wisconsin. A recap and your thoughts is something you can do if it would help you. You don’t owe us anything.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    We’ve had another mass murder, by shooting in Belfair, WA. The shooter killed himself rather than surrender to police. They think this is a familial murder/suicide, but are details are still scarce.

    Here’s the link:
    king5.com/story/news/crime/2016/02/26/swat-responds-report-4-people-shot-belfair/80987850/

    Caution autoplay.

    So that’s four this week, unless I’ve missed one, that did not involve some other crime that devolved into mass murder.

  14. 14.

    Yutsano

    @Adam L Silverman: Belfair is a really small remote town west of Seattle. There’s a lot of Jeebus humpers and such out that way. Wouldn’t shock me if there’s some religious element to this story.

  16. 16.

    RandomMonster

    I’ve grown to love listening to my local radio station, kusp.org, for their music, especially their Soul Shack programs. I can’t describe how happy it makes me to hear a line up of funk I wouldn’t otherwise know, delivered in the calm, reassuring voice of public radio, all on a Friday night while cooking.

  20. 20.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Yutsano: I’ve visited that area a lot when I was growing up. My parents lived in Bremerton before they moved to sunny Southern California and my dad’s family were still up there when I was a kid.

  21. 21.

    Origuy

    @Mnemosyne: I posted that to Facebook and called out a friend who plays violin in an all-female mariachi band. I hope it cheers her up; she lost her abuelita this week.

  22. 22.

    ruemara

    Sorry for your loss, EFG. That’s a pretty cool song. A friend of mine got me into this fellow, Ritchie Havens. Another week and I’ll be in Vegas. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do in Vegas, but I’m bored already and planning to pack books.

    And the leg is doing something weird, but thankfully, not dvt again. Nope, not gonna deal with that crap again. yay for me.

  26. 26.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    #NeverTrump Trends Worldwide In Revolt Against Donald Trump

    Hours after the Republican frontrunner scored a major endorsement from Chris Christie, thousands of people took to Twitter to say why they won’t vote for Trump.

    Ban Torture ‏@BanTorture

    #NeverTrump because someone with the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old shouldn’t have their finger on the button.

    Christine ‏@MariePaulette48

    #NeverTrump because If I wanted to live in North Korea I would move there.

  27. 27.

    some guy

    online shopping for wheels. Asanti, KMC, and Lexani are the outside candidates, but American Racing and Motegi Racing are in the lead. Still trying to understand offset, and how far I can deviate from the 24mm offset that the OE uses on the puketacular stock 20″ chrome inset factory standard wheels I am currently running.

    so want 22s, but the rubber costs are exhorbitant. but show me a 22 with a 15mm-24mm offset, gloss black deep lip machined 5 spoke and I will be your slave for life.

  30. 30.

    TS

    @efgoldman:

    Nothing like grandchild therapy. They see the world through the eyes of wonder. They love you unconditionally. May the healing continue

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    Idle question: Is there a name for the style of women’s shoe where a wedge heel is concealed inside what looks like a high-top sneaker?

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    One of the group is making a bacon-wrapped turkey for the Saturday night gathering, and I’ve been assigned side dishes. Figured on keeping it basic, so going with mashed potatoes and a carrot souffle (for 12 – already know some regulars won’t be there.

    Personally, the turkey done in that fashion is a turn-off as it tastes overpoweringly of salt (I choke down only enough to be polite). So shall also be bringing a big pot of traditional Spanish garlic soup to fill up on.

    He always somehow manages to find the tiniest turkey imaginable when he makes it, so don’t feel at all bad about only having a nibble of that. Last time he made it we had a full complement of 18 and he prepared a 6 pound bird.

  36. 36.

    opiejeanne

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I have come to view the more rural, remote areas with unease. I am glad we didn’t buy a house any more remote than this one. Every place we looked that was like that seems to have a lot of militia types, some that have had some serious run-ins with the Feds, but we are only finding out now.
    I try not to think about the idiot next door who is probably going to vote for Trump; I wouldn’t be surprised if he was armed to the teeth.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @Betty Cracker:

    Cracker! I’m handing it off to you. It’s been crickets around here. The housecat is staring at me with exaggerated sleepy eyes, and yet she won’t retire to the bedroom by herself.

  44. 44.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @opiejeanne: My aunt lived in Belfair in the late 60’s so it was a bit(maybe only a bit) different than today. One of my neighbors is sporting a “Trump” bumper sticker on his big loud ass truck.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne:

    I have come to view the more rural, remote areas with unease.

    Meh. I live in one. No worse than the city, and in most ways better. Yes there are some whackos running around with guns, but that’s no different than the city. There are also some white trash meth heads straight out of “Winter’s Bone” cooking out in the shed too, but some of the neighborhoods I lived in up in STL were like something from “The Wire”. Basically people out here have a “mind your own business and I’ll mind mine” attitude which is again, just like the city. I’m an avowed atheist with “Black Lives Matter” on the back of my truck and even tho I drive past 3 Confederate flags on my way to a small town with 2 dozen churches of various Christian denominations, nobody fvcks with me. (I have found that the easiest way to get people out here to leave me alone is to tell them I’m an atheist- for better and worse- most of them are good people for whom Jesus is the central tenet of their moral being)

    All in all even tho there are parts of city life I miss, I prefer it out here because it’s quiet, and green, and smells like life and I never know what kind of critter is gonna come visiting, which is not like the city..

  52. 52.

    Zinsky

    @ ruemara: I don’t know your age, but I have been listening to Richie Havens since 1969! I hope you know he performed at Woodstock and, in fact, was the opening act. He played almost three hours then, because many of the acts couldn’t get to the venue because highways were jammed for 20 miles in all directions! I wasn’t there myself but knew 2 or 3 who were and said that Havens performance was like a religious experience! The LSD probably helped. Here he is performing Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower .

    Richie Havens was incomparable.

  56. 56.

    laura

    @ruemara: please consider making a reservation to tour the Neon Museum at night. You will not regret it. Otherwise, books by a pool or art supplies is a good bet.

  57. 57.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly:Yes, we get that where we live now. Very little noise, bucolic, and now it bugs me when lawnmowers in the distance shatter the stillness. My girls live in Seattle, not far away. and the stillness here is stunning to them. I understand about the minding your own business thing, but it’s like Sherlock Holmes remarked about there being just as much evil in the quiet countryside as in the cities.
    I know the type of place where you live and your neighbors are probably a bunch of my cousins. I can feel the place pull at me when I have visited, but there are no paved roads in the area, other than the state highway that passes through Macks Creek. My great grandmother’s house still stands, owned by distant cousins, my great grandfather’s farm on the other side of Mom’s family is still owned by cousins. Beautiful country but so isolated from modern life that it’s like stepping back 50 years. They’re all on the internet because they’ve discovered AOL and they’ve got a phone and a credit card.
    My impression of St Louis is from 1978 and all I can say is I wouldn’t want to live there. I like smaller cities, like Seattle or Riverside, CA. They have areas that are very walkable

  59. 59.

    mclaren

    @opiejeanne:

    I have come to view the more rural, remote areas with unease.

    I have come to view the large cities of America with unease.

    Gangs, drugs, tenements, rotting walls, rotting floors, sewage backing up fromthe toilet into the apartment, sewage backing up from corroded sewage mains into the streets, collapsing water mains, collapsing bridges, rust everywhere, crack freaks cooking meth on the stoves of their apartments, crazed cops jumping on the hoods of cars and firing at innocent occupants until their guns are empty, then reloading and firing again, corrupt developers who tear down small houses to build giant apartment buildings that turn into deal spirals of drugs and decay, skyrocketing rents, escalating freeway traffic jams that turn into parking lots choked with pollution, a sky so brown it looks like God wiped his ass on the horizon, toxic water, toxic air, toxic people, toxic food, toxic beaches, toxic bays, people people people people people people people people people people clogging every parking and every laundromat and every post office and every restaurant and every high-rise and every parking structure and every theater and every library and every museum and every park and every tenement and every street, people people people people turning even the simplest task like grocery shopping into a 3-our-long death struggle, overpriced food, overpriced water, overpriced restaurants, overpriced houses, overpriced apartments, overpriced gasoline, overpriced clothes, overpriced daycare, overpriced schools, overpriced stores, overpriced movies, concrete everywhere, no green, toxic asphalt burned-out oilstained brick rotting rubble infested with rats re-sold as “gentrified elegant luxury living,” parents so paranoid they call 911 if they see children playing outside, women so paranoid they pepper-spray strangers on the street, men so paranoid they shoot strangers with concealed-carry pistols if the stranger dares approach to ask them directions, drive-by shootings, road rage, ‘roid rage, white rage, black rage, Latino rage, black gangs, white gangs, Russian mafia gangs, Cambodian gangs, Salvadoran gangs, Mexican Mafia gangs, asian gangs, biker gangs, gentrification, upscale living, armies of homeless people living in tents on the streets and carboard boxes in alleys and in tents under freeways and in dumpsters in tunnels, giant stadiums that suck the homeowners dry of money to enrich billionaires, city councils that criminalize poverty and homelessness, endless reeking choking gagging smog and heat sizzling off the pavement until dogs drop dead in the streets and children keel over from heat prostration.

    Big cities in America are the inhabitants of mutants and wealthy thieves and criminals looking for abundant prey and deluded dupes who’ve bought the Big Lie that there are jobs that pay enough to live in any large U.S. city.

    Small towns represent the last refuge of sanity in America. We look at the inhabitants of the large U.S. cities and shudder, the same way people in zombie movies look at creatures whose skin is rotting off.

Comments are closed.