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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Afternoon Open Thread

Afternoon Open Thread

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Looks like we are on our own today. I rescued these flowers just before the snow last week. I have a new vase full that I rescued today from the backyard. Not safe from the galloping hooves of my beasts I’m afraid.

Finally finished up the front yard and it’s all ready for planting – which will have to wait until after Mother’s Day in this zone. Now on to the backyard….which needs some major improvements to make it dog safe and section off part for my vegetable garden.

What’s on your plate today? Open thread.

(ETA: Because I know someone with sharp eyes will ask, yes that is a wrought iron dragon guarding my sunglasses)

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    Waiting for my monthly RWA meeting to begin. After this, errands and shopping prior to going to see Into the Woods at the Ahmanson tonight. G only likes certain musicals, mostly Sondheim.

  4. 4.

    gene108

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Kind of surprised Zakariah had a missile-gasm. He’s usually pretty level headed.

    Off to work. Then trying to do meal prep for the week, so I do not eat out or eat junk food.

  5. 5.

    geg6

    Fabulous weather here! 65 and sunny.

    Going to take Koda and go to the grocery store. Strip steaks and asparagus are on sale. I’ll make those with some baby potatoes with sour cream and chives. Have a nice red blend to drink and my John made a pineapple upside down cake in a cast iron skillet last night, so dessert is set.

    John is cutting grass and then will be working on getting some seedlings going in the greenhouse. Can’t wait to finish laundry to get out there!

  6. 6.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    So next weekend (4/15) we head out to visit the family in (ugh) Dallas. But we are taking a couple days to go down to Austin/the hill country to try and check it out and hopefully see some wildflowers. We’ll be staying in Johnson City. Any suggestions on good drives to do on the way down there? Favorite spots? Etc. Let me know.

  7. 7.

    pamelabrown53

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: #3.
    Fareed Zakaria certainly shamed himself, i.e., he rolled in the feces. Interesting observation re: Jeremy Scahill.. He used to write for the New Yorker. However, since he’s become more of a polemicist than investigative reporter, they no longer publish him. The New Yorker has strict journalistic standards which is why I’m happy that they still publish Jane Mayer.
    Oh, having a senior moment. Who was the former investigative reporter who used to publish in the New Yorker about CIA matters? He started writing what appeared to be CT drivel. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t conjure his name from my murky Crazy 8 Ball brain?

    ETA. Have no idea why every word past “used to” is bolded and I can’t seem to change it. I apologize.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    TPM

    Here’s notable news this morning. K.T. McFarland, a key Flynn holdover at the NSC and a comically unqualified Fox News National Security ‘analyst’, has been fired as the number two person at the National Security Council. This is more house-cleaning by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @gene108: Kind of surprised Zakariah had a missile-gasm. He’s usually pretty level headed.

    he said today that trump ended his message with a prayer Barack Obama would not have dared to make,”God Bless America, and the whole world”. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and guess he’s saying right-wingers would have had a massive hissyfit if Obama has called on the FSM to bless furrinners (and I’d also bet somebody who gave a fuck could find Obama saying something very like that many times), but… Trump and prayer, fercrissake.

    The religiosity and moralism reminds me of nothing so much as Tony Blair and the so-called moral case for invading Iraq. Wasn’t Blair going through some kind of personal religious re-awakening right around 2000– didn’t he convert to Catholicism late in his term of office?

    @pamelabrown53: CT?

  11. 11.

    pamelabrown53

    @FlipYrWhig: #9.
    Yes! Seymour Hirsch! Thank you, the inability to retrieve his name was freaking me out.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist. CT= conspiracy theory.

  14. 14.

    JMG

    I don’t think you’re allowed to be a cable TV pundit unless you always support unilateral American military action. Your bosses would fire you for insufficient support of higher ratings.

  16. 16.

    Kay Eye

    @Uncle Ebeneezer: willow City Loop between Fredericksburg and Llano is usually good. If you are adventurous, obscure ranch roads around Mason-Menard can offer some special pleasures.A tour of the LBJ Ranch outside of Stonewall gives you some additional, tamer Hill Country views.

  17. 17.

    Betsy

    Recently some commenters have mentioned some good books. (Threads from the last several days) But I’ve had allergies and have been too dopey to find the threads again.

    Anyone care to mention the book(s) again?

    I think there was one about national security, but don’t know if it was a novel or a nonfiction book.

    How’s that for vague …

  18. 18.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @Kay Eye: Awesome! Thx. We already had WCL on our to-do list. Looks like Ennis is a pretty good drive-thru on the way down but I’m not sure how the flowers will be by the time we get there (they were supposedly peaking a week or so ago.)

  22. 22.

    zach

    @gene108:

    Kind of surprised Zakariah had a missile-gasm. He’s usually pretty level headed.

    Like lots of other people, he’s wanted the US to intervene in the Syrian civil war against Assad for years, this is an escalation for our involvement, and the chemical attack is an excuse. This is as much about chemical warfare as Iraq II was about Saddam gassing his own people or having chem/bio weapons.

  23. 23.

    germy

    Haley is saying one thing and tillerson is saying something else? Unless I’m mistaken.

  24. 24.

    efgoldman

    Later this afternoon, we will have our weekly video call w/granddaughter, who will tell us all about her first (and last) trip to Ringling Brothers’ circus yesterday.

    Saw the first robin in our yard this morning. I know those of you to the South have had them for a while.

    mrs efg is out doing yard work. I don’t know why (I do know why: because I’m stupid) but after 40 years ot finally occurred to me that it’s genetic. She’s half Italian; gotta’ have some dirt, no matter how little; gotta’ cultivate something.

  25. 25.

    germy

    @Aleta:

    durmp’s travel expenses in 10 weeks cost US taxpayers as much as Barack Obama spent in two years. US President has spent seven weekends at Mar-a-Lago since taking office 10 weeks ago

    This will never be reported on any of the media outlets his voters see or hear, and so they will never know about it.

    (Notice I didn’t say read just see or hear)

  26. 26.

    Denali

    I just finished Autumn by Ali Smith and really enjoyed it. Bristish writer, very up to the minute stuff. Now I’m reading the dystopian novel The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Downer. Read somewhere that she used DT’s MAG sologan in an earlier novel. Very weird.

  27. 27.

    Quinerly

    @Aleta:
    And I think Betsy DeVos’s security is costing a million a week. Also, read that Mar-A- Lago’s helipad is now finished. Air Force One will fly to wherever in the area and he can then hop on Marine One to the resort. No traffic, no motorcades. This crew will break us…one way or another.

  28. 28.

    Quinerly

    @germy:
    Rachel Maddow has reported it. Pretty sure about that. Might have also been in the Washington Post. Of course, no reports on Fox. We are so fucked.

  29. 29.

    pamelabrown53

    @germy: #21.
    I hope as Ambassador to Singapore, she knows enough not to chew gum and jaywalk. Singapore loves its rules.

  30. 30.

    germy

    Stayed up last night to watch SNL. Of course Alec Baldwin opened. But later in the evening he did a rather good Bill O’Reilly impression. Wonder if bill will see it.

  31. 31.

    germy

    @pamelabrown53: They wouldn’t dare lash an ambassador!

    (Although I’d be surprised if anyone in this administration could jaywalk and chew gum at the same time)

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    Btw the WaPo has a good couple stories up about Trumpov & Co not having a coherent plan of any kind for Syria or anything else for that matter

    Also glad to see a top story about Ryan and McConnell’s shameless hypocrisy when it comes to trumps strike on Syria versus what they were telling Obama to do (or rather, not to do)

    All IOKIYAR, all the time with Repubs

  34. 34.

    Quinerly

    @germy:
    Washington Post agrees with you on conflicting messages. There’s a piece up with essentially that title. Didn’t read it, though…can’t link from this Windows phone. I’m a bit behind. Needed two mental health days away from all of it. I was on overload. Yard work is my salvation.

  35. 35.

    brendancalling

    I had a crazy busy Saturday, so today I’m lazing on a sunny afternoon. Probably picking some bluegrass later this evening.

    Legs aren’t doing too badly after yesterday’s long run: 12 miles, and marathon-bound by the end of the year. But still… there will not be much physical exertion today.

  36. 36.

    D58826

    An interesting piece on who may have conducted the chemical weapons attack last week by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter. Short version:
    1, may not have been Assad and/or Russians
    2. local jihadists have been producing crude chemical munitions in the area
    3. so not necessarily a slam dunk case.

    Wag The Dog — How Al Qaeda Played Donald Trump And The American Media

    Responsibility for the chemical event in Khan Sheikhoun is still very much in question.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald-trump_us_58ea226fe4b058f0a02fca4d?

  37. 37.

    pamelabrown53

    @germy: #31.
    Now wouldn’t a “lashing” make an interesting international incident? Still, it’s unlikely that our new Ambassador to Singapore has any idea of the gazillion “rules” that could lead to a lashing. As you know the right wing is all about “freedumb”!

    Maybe we should send her a T-shirt available all over Singapore with a partial list of rules?

  38. 38.

    Quinerly

    @Jeffro:
    Thanks. I read it when I was souped up on sinus meds. I stay perpetually enraged since back from my trip. Have been reading too much, too fast and just screaming…on overload. A million here, 5 million there….eventually it will become serious money.? I’m convinced we are going to war. Trump has gotten a taste of it and that doesn’t bode well.

  39. 39.

    smintheus

    This piece from Nature is irritatingly stupid: “Why people prefer unequal societies”.

    Even on its own terms, the paper isn’t credible. First the three authors (Yale psychologists all) argue away the clear preference of children for absolute equality in distribution of desirable things. Then they assume that the willingness of adults to accept slight inequality in wealth between rich and poor is a sign that adults don’t value equality, rather than simply that adults acknowledge that a much higher degree of inequality is the reality we live with.

    Those same adults aren’t all that keen on embracing the reality, as shown by their ridiculous underestimation of the actual degree of inequality in the US. They imagine that the poorest 40% has as much as 10% of total wealth. Anyway, you’d have thought that even a trio of cossetted Yalies couldn’t get around the fact that people think the poorest 40% of the public should have about 25 times as much wealth as the pittance that group actually possesses.

  40. 40.

    Seanly

    OMFG I finally got a chance to see the pulled Pepsi ad. It was even worse than I imagined. I am going to cleanse my mind by taking my dogs to a park for a nice walk.

  41. 41.

    FlipYrWhig

    @germy: Just days ago in an argument with a Trumper on a friend’s FB feed, the guy brought up as one of Obama’s great sins his wasting taxpayer money on travel. I’d call it cognitive dissonance but I don’t think it’s cognitive, it’s just some lizard brain shit.

  44. 44.

    Quinerly

    @Seanly:
    I can’t fathom what they were thinking. I know nothing about advertising business but you would think that someone at some point in the “food chain” would have realized how bad it was.

  45. 45.

    FlipYrWhig

    @germy: Willful oblivion. It just became “oh yeah well at least Trump had accomplished something before becoming president!” Sigh.

  47. 47.

    germy

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Willful oblivion.

    After 20+ years of Ailes and hate radio, they’re basically regurgitating what they’ve been fed. They’re vomiting it all over the body politic.

    I saw a sad letter to the editor in my local paper, written by a WWII vet. He hit just about every single faux news talking point you could imagine, in about three paragraphs. I’m sure he was proud to see it in print, though.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @D58826: Repost – The Obama Doctrine:

    Obama was also unsettled by a surprise visit early in the week from James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, who interrupted the President’s Daily Brief, the threat report Obama receives each morning from Clapper’s analysts, to make clear that the intelligence on Syria’s use of sarin gas, while robust, was not a “slam dunk.” He chose the term carefully. Clapper, the chief of an intelligence community traumatized by its failures in the run-up to the Iraq War, was not going to overpromise, in the manner of the onetime CIA director George Tenet, who famously guaranteed George W. Bush a “slam dunk” in Iraq.

    [image]

    While the Pentagon and the White House’s national-security apparatuses were still moving toward war (John Kerry told me he was expecting a strike the day after his speech), the president had come to believe that he was walking into a trap—one laid both by allies and by adversaries, and by conventional expectations of what an American president is supposed to do.

    Ritter’s a bright guy. And I wouldn’t want to bet anyone’s life that any particular group was responsible for the gas exposure based on what has been released publicly. And we won’t really know until an investigation can be one in the actual place where it happened.

    Defense One has a decent summary of the “information war” and some links to in-the-field reports. I have no way to judge the veracity of any of them, nor can I explain the apparent contradictions (4 rockets vs 4 barrel bombs, 6:30 AM vs 12:30 PM, etc.) – they may be talking about different events (even perhaps to sow confusion).

    It’s a mess. I suspect it was Assad that was responsible, especially since he and Russia won’t permit an independent investigation. But we have no way to really know and have to make a judgment based on our personal evaluation of the credibility of the reports…

    What seems clear, though, is that it’s highly unlikely that Donnie has an actual sensible foreign policy objective that will be furthered by our attack…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Jeffro

    @smintheus: someone ought to show them that “Wealth Inequality in America” presentation that’s been around a while now…no RWNJ friend or relative of mine has ever had a response to seeing that…(and the progressive ones usually want to go pitchfork shopping right afterwards)

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @Quinerly

    I know nothing about advertising business

    From one who labored in the trenches of Madison Avenue for a while back when, newsflash:

    Neither does anyone employed in it.

  55. 55.

    pamelabrown53

    @Quinerly: #38.
    Re: Trump’s taste for going to war. I dread you may be right. This bullshit strike has provided him with the most uniformly positive press since his bigly successful inauguration.Trump was accorded such positive reinforcement for an ill thought, wag the dog ploy. The narcissist was fed by 24/7 cable and who knows where this may end.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Following up, (although probably out of print) Edward Bernays’ books* on public relations (a field he pioneered) remain highly instructive.

    …universal literacy has given [the common man] a rubber stamp, a rubber stamp inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of tabloids and the profundities of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man’s rubber stamp is the twin of millions of others, so that when these millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints.

    The amazing readiness with which large masses accept this process is probably accounted for by the fact that no attempt is made to convince them that black is white. Instead, their preconceived hazy ideas that a certain gray is almost black or almost white are brought into sharper focus. Their prejudices, notions, and convictions are used as a starting point, with the result that they are drawn by a thread into passionate adherence to a given mental picture.

    *Crystallizing Public Opinion and Propaganda, especially.

    Also too, for a lighter take, Carroll Carroll’s None of Your Business: Or, My Life with J. Walter Thompson.

  58. 58.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @pamelabrown53: I’m hoping Lindsey Graham comparing him to Reagan– and he didn’t mean sub-literate, detached from reality and easily manipulated– blows up in LG’s face, but I fear it was very deliberate flattery-though-media strategy. I’m waiting to see some evidence of public reaction. I wonder what the split is between pundit fawning and real Americans.

  59. 59.

    Aleta

    Dog related…. In the last 3 days I’ve had a couple of reminders about Lyme in dogs. A woman who just sold me her high class new dog bed had lost her Newf to Lyme (in central Maine). What she described sounded very painful for him and heartbreaking. Now today my brother in law is rushing his dog to the vet after 2 weeks of lethargy, not eating and it sounds possible to be Lyme too. (Gloucester MA area, high tick density). If it is Lyme, the vet didn’t catch it the first time he took him in.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    Maybe this has already been discussed, but I just glanced at Donnie’s twitterings:

    Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account @realDonaldTrump 4h 4 hours ago

    So sad to hear of the terrorist attack in Egypt. U.S. strongly condemns. I have great…

    Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account @realDonaldTrump 4h 4 hours ago

    Replying to @realDonaldTrump
    …confidence that President Al Sisi will handle situation properly.

    Yeah, it’s Twitter, but who thinks and writes like that?

    “So sad”?

    45 killed at Coptic church bombings isn’t like his old dog died, or something.

    “… great confidence that Al Sisi will handle situation properly”?

    A terrorist attack isn’t a “situation”, and who really cares about your “great confidence”? What, if anything, is the US going to do to help? Have we been asked to help? Have we offered help?

    Sheesh. It’s still all about Donnie and his buddies. “My buddy is a great guy and I’m sure he’ll do a great job!!1”

    :-/

    Clown. Dangerous, brain-damaged clown…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Ruviana

    @NotMax: Bernays was a very interested guy, nephew of Freud amd deeply involved in the propaganda side of the U.S. overthrow of the Guatemalan government in 1954.

  64. 64.

    Yarrow

    Watching a bit of The Masters. I know Raven had said that the azaleas were done, but it’s so weird to see it without the azaleas out. It’s such a gorgeous course and especially so when the azaleas are in full bloom.

  68. 68.

    Yarrow

    @Mike in NC: That’s an unexpectedly good and interesting museum. Definitely worth a visit.

    @Uncle Ebeneezer: If you’re going through Austin and are interested in wildflowers, save some time to stop by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

  69. 69.

    Mike in NC

    @Another Scott: Trump has already forgotten about his pointless drive-by shooting in Syria. Next on the list: North Korea. Attack on Iran penciled in on his schedule for May. Winning!

  70. 70.

    MattF

    @Betsy: I’ve been reading SFF lately– Max Gladstone and Ada Palmer. I’d recommend Gladstone to anyone, Palmer… it’s less obvious. Gladstone’s written five novels, in a sort-of series but you can read them in any order, a sixth is coming soon. In Gladstone’s ‘Craft’ civilization, magicians are sort-of lawyers, and there are magical contracts, magical corporations– and senior partners in magical law firms are people you don’t want to have an argument with or meet in a dark alley. It’s fun and also raises some serious issues.

    Palmer’s written two out of projected four, and the order matters. Her books are written in a mock-18th century style, and have very complex plots. There’s a lot of philosophizing. I didn’t like the two books at all at the start, but it got better by the end of the second book.

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne

    @zach:

    I was talking to my recovering Republican brother yesterday and I think it’s easy for us to forget that liberal interventionist actions are usually quite popular with non-crazy conservatives. He was totally okay with punishing Assad for using chemical weapons on civilians, because using chemical weapons on civilians is a horrible crime that needs to be punished. And since I’m at least somewhat on board with that, my “anti” argument was that Trump had put us into this corner in the first place, so I didn’t want to give him credit for belatedly trying to fix it.

  73. 73.

    SWMBO

    @Aleta: My old girl Pixie was going downhill fast in 2012. She just was punked and didn’t feel good all the time. She had ehrlichia (also a tick disease). My mother was going down faster than Pixie was. I looked up ehrlichia and yep, it’s zoonotic and my mom had EVERY ONE of the symptoms. It takes 45 minutes to test a dog. It takes 10 days of culturing to test humans. Have them do the full tick panel on the dog. If any person starts exhibiting symptoms of lethargy or low fever or other symptoms, have them checked. A lot of tick diseases can hide in bone marrow and erupt out of the blue (think chicken pox and shingles. You can have a mild original case of chicken pox and a hellish shingle episode. Same with some tick diseases.)
    Good luck. There are antibiotics that are effective against most tick diseases. My mother thought she was dying until they gave her doxycycline. After the third day, she decided she was going to live after all.

  75. 75.

    PaulWartenberg

    Had to drink a toast to an absent friend today.

    Doug was someone I knew from Tarpon High, with a circle of friends that would do the teen nightclubs and late movie runs.

    Doug was leading the group that took me to my first Rocky Horror Picture Show.

    He passed away last week. There was a memorial in Clearwater this morning.

  76. 76.

    J R in WV

    @debbie:

    Really? How did they do that?

    We attended the WV Symphony lasts night, short Elegy by Samuel Barber for a warm-up, two concertos for guitar and orchestra, intermission. Then Tchaikovsky’s 4th symphony.

    They’ve invited guest conductors all season, trying out for the music conductor position, current conductor retiring. They poll attendees after each concert, will use that as part of the selection process. We’ve missed one so far, all have done great jobs.

    For a small town it’s a wonderful sounding group.

    Wonderful evening, the sounds were familiar, some of my favorite pieces.

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