Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

In my day, never was longer.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Tick tock motherfuckers!

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

The willow is too close to the house.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Love You Because You Know Such Lovely People

I Love You Because You Know Such Lovely People

by | 89 Comments

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Looks like we can use a fresh open thread. I believe JeffreyW is trying to broaden my musical horizons these days. He’s been posting some very cool tunes over at our place. With all the unpacking and organizing, I’ve been able to listen to many of them. This one brought back memories…

Unpacking is going as well as it can with almost everything in one room while I wait for the new floors. I think I have what flooring I like picked out – but now I have cold feet because it’s acacia pattern and I’m afraid it’s too busy. I may buy a box and test it out  – thirty bucks well spent.

Summer walk

This is our new morning walk and after a stressful weekend of moving it was so peaceful to walk down this path. Bixby did not handle the chaos very well. We actually had to pull three people off the move and have them stay with him so he didn’t completely freak out. Three days of that and he has finally settled in nicely. The cats, not so much, but they’ll come around.

The kitchen has turned out nicely and I can’t wait to share photos…when I can find my actual camera…and the cables…I was lucky to find matching shoes to wear to work on Monday.

This is your late night open thread….

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    I’m off to bed.

    I posted this comment on a previous thread, but my link didn’t work. So I’m posting again with a working link.

    Another must see movie in the fall: Loving

    I just watched the trailer for the film and Yo…..I got misty eyed.

  2. 2.

    slag

    After listening to this podcast on welfare reform, I am reminded, once again, that the real issue with welfare was the fact that white people didn’t want to share it. Tale as old as time.

    Otherwise, the entire series on the topic is quite informative.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    I saw that first video last night. I like Garbage and Shirley Mason. And both she and the female guitarist from Screaming Females both have great vocal ranges. And I love that song – Smith’s version, Bruce’s version, Natalie Merchant’s version. This is a very interesting and powerful version. I’m still trying to process it.

    Also, I sent you an email!

  5. 5.

    Aleta

    Because the Night, love that song,

    I’ve been thinking about The Graduate as a kind of offbeat 60s noir. Possible?

  8. 8.

    Jerzy Russian

    We have hardwood floors that is acacia wood. They look nice. You still might get cold feet in the winter months, but you can wear socks then.

  9. 9.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Omgomgomgomgomgomg! There are at least six levels of indie cool in that song and video.

  13. 13.

    scav

    @redshirt: Definitely spaced and why’d he keep looking offstage? Body language read as though he didn’t really fully realize where he was and certainly didn’t want to be there.

  15. 15.

    Chris

    Enjoying a delightful Facebook thread (reading, not commenting, thank you) by a Latin acquaintance I knew in Miami freaking out about how Hillary Clinton clearly lied under oath and is getting away with it. The conversation below the post goes on into how the Department of Justice is “littered with Muslims with actual traceable connections to terrorist organizations,” how look at all the mysterious deaths that have happened around the Clintons, and that people are just brainwashed by the liberal media. To her credit, my acquaintance points out that she and “our generation” (millennials) won’t vote for Trump until he “clarifies” his racist statements… although she hastens to add that she personally doesn’t believe he is racist, but is taking no chances. (Another person helpfully points out that almost every time someone’s believed to be racist, it turns out they’re not).

    Don’t ask me how, but it’s a magic touch: in three and a half years in Miami, I’m fairly sure I’ve managed to meet every Latino right-winger in the city. My first landlord, the people at the church community I briefly attended, a non-trivial chunk of my classmates. Just the other week another friend from the university was telling me it’s just as well she won’t be naturalized before November because she really wouldn’t be sure who to vote for. … She’s an immigrant, a woman, a Hispanic, a lesbian, and educated enough to know a Democrat from a Republican. One of the candidates is Donald Trump. And she’s “not sure” who the lesser evil is. Some people defy all reason.

  17. 17.

    ruemara

    I have a strange question. Have any of you been put in a position where you have to supervise your immediate superior by their superior? I’m in a pickle here. And we’re all very tired of explaining to their superiors that it is inappropriate to expect us to say “no” to our boss, past the point of due diligence if say, he’s about to do something that might get us in legal trouble. And even then, there’s a limit, because it’s your boss.

    @Chris: You need to say that, because they’re only saying what they say in the hopes that you’ll reinforce the willful blindness because they’d rather hate Hillary than stand up to the real evil. Silence gives them cover.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @why hello…: @redshirt: @eclare: @scav: @Aleta: @Betty Cracker: There’s three possibilities. 1) He’s a charismatic Christian. Their worship tends to be more raucous, involve music, and movement, as well as glossolalia/speaking in tongues when touched/moved by the spirit. So it may have been that. 2) He’s got an undisclosed or undiagnosed neurological problem. 3) He’s no longer recovering.

    Unless otherwise notified, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and going with the first one.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    @Chris

    Fly on the wall at the F.B.I.?

    She wasn’t under oath during the Congressional marathon. Just sayin’.

  23. 23.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: You’re very generous. But even if that were true, shouldn’t the former leader of the Free World know it would be bad form to be so Charismatic at a memorial to dead police officers?

  24. 24.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @ruemara: I’ve been put in some…interesting…positions work-wise by people who trusted me more than they trusted the people who were actually in charge. The one thing I learned and lived by, I did what protected me, because in the end, no one else was going to do it. It meant straddling some interesting chasms, but I took it as a challenge and the gymnastics have served me well going forward.

  29. 29.

    redshirt

    Also, has anyone on BJ commented yet on the matter of Obama cutting his European trip short to come back for this? I’m sure, right?

    It bothers me. Because he HAS to do it because it was a militant black man killing cops and talking about killing white people. For Fox News America, that is THE number one threat and they’re gonna freak out. He has to come back as a sop to them so there’s no “Obama vacationed in Europe while Black People killed Cops” meme…. or, who are we kidding. That’s already out there.

    But to the MSM, he has to play their game on this matter, and it sucks.

  34. 34.

    Emma

    @redshirt: My father the (maybe soon to be ex) Republican was incensed about this. He ranted that Obama was in Europe on serious business, and that the country did not elect him to be Chief Mourner every time some idiot picked up a gun and started shooting.

  38. 38.

    Chris

    @redshirt:

    Obama always is, haven’t you heard? More than any other President literally EVER! And he golfs!

    Now watch this drive!

  39. 39.

    Emma

    @Chris: Jiminy Crickets. No wonder!

    In all seriousness, give your friend a copy of The Hunting of the President. Might give her some insights.
    Or not. We Latins love conspiracy theories.

  40. 40.

    scav

    @Adam L Silverman: I could certainly buy the first for what most call dancing (and some of the others had little hints of it, mostly in the hands), but the the looking offstage is different. That’s more really not being in the moment.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @eclare: He’s special… He’s who he is. The spirit moved him, he’s got a real neurological issue and is somewhat more out of it than he normally was, or he’s slipped from his recovery. Or mix and match. I don’t know him, I’ve never met him. So given his professed beliefs, I’m going with a reasonable explanation.

  42. 42.

    redshirt

    @Chris: Right wingers make a big deal every time Obama golfs. It’s so remarkably racist and yet so casual, because no bad words are ever used. Just FW:FW:FW:FW:RE: “Look at Obama golfing… again!”

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @scav: I honestly have no idea. He’s always been a bit socially different. Like he’s constantly fighting all the etiquette he was taught and the protocol he has to conform to because he doesn’t like it and the fact that he’s a wealthy and privileged frat boy. But I reckon we can cut him some slack. Its not like he tried to invade the brass section or anything.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: I could never stand W to the extent of changing the channel to avoid even hearin his smsarmy voice, but I never bought it to the on vacation all the time BS. Presidents have no vacations and no rest. That is one reason they age like motherfuckers in office.

  49. 49.

    JCJ

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    One of the local TV stations had an interview with Shirley Manson last week when they were here for Summerfest. During the interview she talked about being in Wisconsin and how her bandmates have made her into a Packer fan. At the end of the interview she said, “Go Pack Go!” with her awesome Scottish accent. It was fantastic.

  52. 52.

    Chris

    @Emma:

    This. I also never thought he was an idiot, as in, actually mentally deficient. Just intellectually lazy, as you said.

  54. 54.

    redshirt

    @Omnes Omnibus: Sure, even when W. was clearing brush at the old ranch deep in the heart of Texas, he was still working. Checking whatever protocol had to be checked that day and every day as President. Lots of protocols, I’m sure. Maybe that’s what ages them?

    But some Presidents do more work than others. W. could barely be bothered to read an analysis – “You’ve covered you’re ass…”, whereas apparently Obama reads everything he’s presented and discusses it the next day(s).

    So when Obama takes 1 week at Cape Cod and 1 week in Hawaii, and W. has 8 weeks at the “Western White House”, who do you think is really taking no vacation?

  58. 58.

    ruemara

    @TaMara (HFG): I’m not sure it’s a position of trust. It’s more, “Well we hired X so everything they do is your problem, lol, Sux to be you, no backsies. God, just train X in right & wrong!”

  59. 59.

    Miss Bianca

    Oh, I had no idea Garbage covered that song. It’s one of those that never gets old, no matter what.

  60. 60.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    When I saw Dubbya speaking this afternoon my first thought was that he was drinking again and I was basing it on color of his face. They just had that slightly puffy reddish complexion that some alcoholics have. I had way too much time on my hands so i even was watching him flip the sheets of paper over during the speech. Now, I know you all cap a speech to make it easier to read but,jeezus,he was flipping the page after saying just ~3 sentences which is crazy. You would have to have the speech typed in 24 pt or something. It didn’t seem like he was using a teleprompter.

  61. 61.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Kind of enjoying the Dumpster Fire Veep stakes game. Can’t wait to watch all the media buzz about what a genius Trump is at media and entertainment deflate when he picks Noot or Crustie.

    Nope, no head-fakery at all. He’s down to the two most desperate lickspittles, and a soft spot for chubs (as has been well-documented).

  62. 62.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mai.naem.mobile: I thought he didn’t look well. Wish I had heard him speak, but didn’t get to tune in until PBO’s remarks. I hear he did a good job with his speech, tho’.

  63. 63.

    eclare

    @Miss Bianca: He didn’t look well to me either. I thought his speech was fine, wow, very short, and I didn’t notice the page turning. Seems like I’ve seen him in what look like reading glasses, so it’s possible that he just doesn’t see that well without them, which would make a large font necessary.

  64. 64.

    Miss Bianca

    @TaMara (HFG): congrats on the new house! I thought of you and the new digs when I saw a job posting for the Boulder Library the other day…

  66. 66.

    WarMunchkin

    Not sure if dogs like or dislike pokemon go. Apparently humans are more built for long distance walking than most pets are. I didn’t think that was the case for dogs given the Iditarod race’s existence.

  68. 68.

    hamletta

    I don’t think W is charismatic; he’s a Baptist. Maybe he just got into the music.

    I thought the arrangement of “Battle Hymn” was a bit ornate.

    Shirley Manson is the best. One of my writers interviewed her years ago, and she adored her. They were just good ol’ girls hanging out at the (old, divey) Gold Rush in Nashville.

  69. 69.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I honestly have no idea. He’s always been a bit socially different. Like he’s constantly fighting all the etiquette he was taught and the protocol he has to conform to because he doesn’t like it and the fact that he’s a wealthy and privileged frat boy.

    Dubya’s got a serious case of ADHD — but that could never be admitted, because Bar would insist that ‘People Like Us’ don’t have low-rent white-trash syndromes like that.

    There’s a history of substance abuse/alcoholism on both sides of the family. Brother Neil is officially dyslexic — he didn’t learn to read until he was a teenager. Brother Marvin has such a bad case of Crohn’s disease — also a serotonin disorder — that he was permitted to avoid the family business (politics). It’s a family curse, but the Golden Eldest Son couldn’t be labelled that way, not if he was gonna be a Republican president someday.

    Dubya is classic Attention Deficit, Hyperactive. He needs to be moving (bike-riding, brush-cutting, towel-snapping) if he’s going to concentrate at all. (Condi Rice used to read him the daily WH updates while he was working out.) He self-medicated (with booze & reportedly cocaine) until his early 40s. He badly needs routine — he travels with his special pillow, prefers not to leave ‘home’ overnight, needed a quick nap every afternoon if he was to stay focused after sunset. On the positive side, he’s got the “charismatic” thing that ADHD people often display; he can light up a room, unite a group, persuade people one-on-one to do stuff (frequently stuff they should know better than to try)… and then he gets bored/tired, and walks away, and the whole thing crashes down. People follow him, because they’re fascinated to see what might happen next…

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    @Anne Laurie:

    Not hard for me to believe, relatives have ADHD, bi-polar, autism spectrum, real difficulty completing some multipart task, like building a hunting camp with a lodge. The lodge never actually gets built. There’s a pre-fab cottage dropped and connected to power and water, but no space for mighty TX hunters to sleep.

    Papers can be exhaustingly researched and noted, actual writing left as an exercise for the writer. But can’t really look at you in the face, like many people do when talking with you.

    And for W it explains so much. How he got the country in so deep, why he let Cheney get in so deep in Iraq, after destroying the existing web of social control, never thinking about replacing that as they went.

    Oh wow, you mean the housing economy needs management, no f’in way dude!

  72. 72.

    Anne Laurie

    @J R in WV: How d’you suppose I know so much about ADHD? Didn’t get diagnosed until my later 30s, but the family history (on both sides) is Reason #4,569 why I never had kids.

  75. 75.

    grammypat

    TaMara, If it’s not too late, I cannot recommend enough that you paint the insides of all of your new-to-you closets and shelving (pantry and linen especially, cupboards too, if possible) BEFORE you start putting things away. It can really make a difference because these areas NEVER get repainted. Having a nice, gloss white finish on all surfaces makes things look spiffy and feel cleaner.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @redshirt:

    Has ADHD always existed in such numbers or is it a modern phenomena?

    The brain chemistry thing seems to be consistent across cultures, and as far as can be determined, history. It’s only in the past couple decades there’s been an uptick in labelling it that way.

    Many books have been/will be written to explain that, but here’s a short summary: We finally have the technology to watch living brains process thoughts — some, it turns out, way differently than the “norm”. Doctors finally have drugs more subtle than phenobarbital to prescribe for kids with ADHD; nobody wanted to label a little kid with a ‘brain disease’ that couldn’t be treated short of stunning them into a coma. And a bunch of the social changes over the last half-century or so have made it harder for people with ADHD to ‘slide between the stones’… from the increased stress on multiple-choice standardized tests for even the youngest kids (pure torture for those of us with ADHD) and the corresponding decrease in opportunities (recess, phys ed, unsupervised after-school play) to expend their excess energy; to the fact that smoking is no longer permitted in so many venues (there’s a reason coffee stops have expanded as the numbers of smokers have decreased; both nicotine & caffeine help soothe ADHD/ADD brains).

    I think of Huck Finn (fictional though he may be) as the perfect ADHD exemplar. He came from a family renowned for its shiftless, addictive, troublemaking ways. He couldn’t bear to be “saved” into a polite, successful middle-class suburban life, even though he knew the people attempting to do so had only his best interests at heart. He was chronically incapable of avoiding “scrapes” — although he always had an open mind about the merits of the various rascals, tramps & hypocrites he encountered.

    And he was the only white character who could step far enough outside of the ‘our sacred Southern heritage’ mental box to see that Jim was as good a human as any of the important, successful white men & women in his life. That’s why the neurotypicals have never managed to eliminate the troublesome genes that make for such unsociable folks: There will always be a need for a minority of the differently perspectived who are bound to “light out for the Territories, ahead of the rest”….

  77. 77.

    Steve in the ATL

    All this Shirley Manson stuff reminds me how much I miss Bartcop. He was good people.

  78. 78.

    scav

    I would rather hope that even benighted neurotypicals could occasionally struggle and manage to come up with innovative concepts, not to mention exhibit empathy, kindness and an individual perspective.

  79. 79.

    Anne Laurie

    @scav: Well, sure. But it’s easier to see things from a different perspective when you’re naturally half a bubble off plumb!

    Look at the difference between GHWB (neurotypical) and GWB (not, I contend). “Poppy” did a sterling job in every miserable turd-polishing Repub position he was assigned, working his way up to become St. Reagan’s presumptive heir. And the permanent GOP establishment did manage to push him across the presidential finish line… once. He never did anything “wrong” that wasn’t officially sanctioned; he pardoned all the Iran-contra criminals, but he never used the wrong fork at state dinners (you can’t really blame the guy for barfing on the Japanese ambassador that one time).

    Dubya, on the other hand, was a train wreck from jump. He only barely managed to get into the Oval Office because Daddy’s hand-picked SCOTUS judges gave him a free pass. And we all know what a disaster he was for the country, and the world. AND YET: He still got elected for a second term! And he still has a core of fervent defenders!

    Nobody loves Poppy (least of all, I suspect, Bar). He’s respected, he’s well spoken of, but he’ll always be one of those two-dimensional “white guy in a nice suit” presidents whose name only gets invoked for trivia quizzes and historians of the era. Dubya, on the other hand, will remain a strong contender for Worst President Ever as long as there’s anyone around to make up lists. He’s a terrible human being and a worse president, but by gar & the DAR he was one hell of a politician!

  80. 80.

    Barb2

    @J R in WV:

    When you live with a family member with an undiagnosed mental illness or disability you often become an expert on the subject. Heck even the family pet becomes an expert. My dog knew when my sister was going to have a psychotic break. My dog would get up and hide, I joined the dog. My sister was 10. I had no idea what was happening. Probably why one of my degrees is in psychology. It took years before she was diagnosed by a shrink. I found her diagnosis in my psychopathology text, the shrink came up with the same diagnosis ten long years later.

    There has always been something off with shrub/bush. I once read an opinion that he was suffering from a mild case of fetal alcohol syndrome. Most likely Barbara Bush has been told but she would never accept that her children weren’t perfect.

    Bush does always have to be busy and active.

    Annie Laurie gives the most logical explanation for GW Bush’s behavior at the funeral service.

    ________
    About funerals. The first funeral I ever attended was one for the older brother of a classmate (freshmen high school). Held in one of the big churches in Oakland California, one of the Black churches. In Oakland whites had their own churches.

    That church was packed. We sat near the front. There were 3 full choirs, a doctor and nurses attending people who fainted. Music and eulogies. The doctor who tried to save the boy’s life spoke. The boy fell through the roof, a glass skylight had been painted to look like the rest of the roof. Broken neck.

    I was treated to some of the best music and stories about my friend’s brother.

    That funeral set my standard for a proper send off for the dead. That was back in the 60s before the gangs. Now death is too common in black communities – the new normal. BLM is right not to accept unexpected death as normal.

    White funerals are too sad and boring.

  82. 82.

    scav

    @Anne Laurie: Still, the bulk of the world is probably neurotypical, so only expecting empathy from those different from them seems profoundly pessimistic. In your further explanation, the neurotypical now come off as unlovable, uninspiring and dull. There’s a lot more involved in character and personality than basic wiring and chemistry, and all sorts of contextual ways to be off-plumb and learn from it.

  83. 83.

    opiejeanne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    three possibilities. 1) He’s a charismatic Christian. Their worship tends to be more raucous, involve music, and movement

    As far as I know, he’s a Methodist, and we generally don’t do that sort of thing. He looks like he doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t understand the gravity of the event.

  87. 87.

    Miss Bianca

    @satby: Oh, that’s where the reference comes from! I knew it sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. Time to get out the martini shaker and do a Thin Man re-watch!

  88. 88.

    The Red Pen

    Sorry I missed this late-night thread. I was out actually seeing Garbage in concert. It was awesome and I think Shirley Manson may be every bit as cool as you’d want her to be.

  89. 89.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Red Pen: Cool! I played this video at work and it caused Lefty Kitty to jump up on the computer screen, start pawing everyone’s faces, and finally leap atop the monitor as if it were a Marshall stack. Good times!

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